OH RIVER FLOOD TOWARDS:: 
A GAZA FUNDRAISER
 
Messages From The Land of Messages::
A Collaborative Movement of Communion in Fragments 
 
Project Statement
 
Oh River Flood Towards is a poem written in correspondence with the painting titled the same, corresponding to my bigger series of movement discourse: A Message From The Land of Messages. In this specific message, I delve towards an idea of collaborative movement and communion where a painting has been cut up into fragments with the possibility of only becoming whole if those who are in ownership bring them together in community and communion. 
 
Oh River Flood Towards holds together Gaza and Palestine as a whole with the poem being an ode to my sisters going through explicit and implicit violence. Cutting up the scroll, from a whole painting into fragments, was an act to embody a divide but it was also a signal of hope towards a definite future poetic justice. 
 
Just like with all my work, accessibility is an important intention. I do not want my art to belong in inaccessible markets in ownership with those that reduce it to numbers and objects. I also want art to be accessible to everyone, to involve community in the process of holding, admiring, and being a part of something larger in the narrative.
 
This is my effort to fundraise for Gaza and Palestine. All 33 pieces are around the range of $45 - $85 and can be bought on my website’s store (www.ayesharaees.com/shop) . 70% proceeds will be donated to grassroot fundraisers and buying E-Sims. The other 30% will cover shipping and handling, website fees, and alike. I will also be mailing a small run of 33 broadsides of the poem. 
 
Once the pieces are sold and mailed away, data will be input of the buyer’s locations on the map (anonymous, safe, and this can be general addresses as well). With the owner’s movement, the piece will move. It will create dialogue with distance, communion, wholeness, and experiment further with the poetry lines in conjunction.  
 
 
The Map [The locations are hypothetical to showcase as examples. Final locations will be updated in January 2025)
 
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1bslG5dHYiJqwi_cIKUbKUzMz9gOT58s&usp=sharing 
 
The Poem
 
Ayesha Raees
Oh River Flood Towards 
 
the sea is dead. Salted heavy. Mouths don’t sink.
I watch my sister bathe. Beautiful 
 
brown, her salt immeasurable. Unexplodable. Untimed.
I witness you. Desire, dream, drone.
 
Your God is my God, and my God is how I move my feet
to flood the streets of New York DC Berlin London—
 
gross— the thirst of white gazes in grand rooms 
where hunger is theoretical, where threat is discourse
 
only felt through thunder. It thunders 
for throat. It storms for flood. It pours
 
and I cover your face 
with my palms. 
 
Oh sister, wait, by the sea, 
and watch the sky separate soon
 
to blue. Say Bismillah. Say 
Alhamdulillah. Say 
 
the water will take all land
home.