ARTIST BIO

Alisha Ebrahim is a medical student and poet from Calgary, Alberta. Alisha’s poems often address faith, self-care, community-building, and recognizing the beauty around us. One theme that ties all of her work together is creating understanding and empathy between individuals. Alisha’s unique writing and performance style blends English words with influences from her East African-Indian culture and the Ismaili Muslim faith, to foster a cosmopolitan ethic within the poetry community. Through her poetry, Alisha attempts to show that people from all cultures and religions can come together to create art, and by extension, create a society which is greater than the sum of its parts.

Instagram: @paperwingspoetry

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

Spoken Word

Alisha’s spoken word piece, Lyrics of Lavender, is inspired by the following prompts of IMAGE? Power of the Visual: “values and ideals”, and “identity and self”. This piece explores specific aspects of how Alisha views and interacts with the world. Through this exploration of minute details in contrast with scoping views of life, the poem delves into foundational pieces of Alisha’s identity. This poem then moves on to discuss the values that Alisha holds as important when picking a lens with which to view the world, and underlines the importance of gathering differing perspectives on life and how it is experienced, in order to learn and grow. Through this poem, Alisha wants to be SEEN as someone who appreciates all aspects of life as the necessary building blocks to understanding ourselves and humanity. By having the courage to accept the difficult aspects of life as equally important to those that bring us joy, and by learning to constantly listen to others and how they view the world differently from us, we can begin to create a better world for ourselves and future generations.