Yasmine Nasser Diaz is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice navigates overlapping tensions around

religion, gender, and third-culture identity. Using collage, textiles, immersive installation, video, performance,

and sound, Diaz mines her personal archives and collects found imagery and objects that reflect her Yemeni-

American upbringing and create space for collective diasporic conversations. Often set within domestic

spheres, Diaz creates narratives that center acts of resistance and bodily autonomy, convey individual

histories, and celebrate global feminist protest movements.

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Deeply influenced by the code-switching techniques used to navigate her multicultural upbringing, Diaz

identifies and employs materials and strategies that present and embody complex subjectivities and

multivalent identities. Most notably, Diaz uses a fiber etching technique that results in depictions of SWANA

(Southwest Asian & North African) female identifying and non-binary individuals. Also known as velvet

burnouts or devoré, Diaz’ fiber etched works draw attention to the Yemeni application of these fabrics in a style

known as dir’, which symbolizes femininity, though it is often reserved for married or engaged women. As a

carefully applied acidic paste dissolves the cellulose fibers of the velvet, Diaz’ images are revealed in the silk-

based mesh that remains intact, sometimes casting shadows of burned figures on the walls behind the works.

 

Yasmine Nasser Diaz (b. Chicago, IL) has exhibited work internationally at venues including Los Angeles

County Museum of Art, OXY ARTS / Occidental College, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, and OCHI in Los

Angeles, CA; Arab American National Museum and Habibi House in Michigan; NADA at Governor’s Island in

New York, NY; ZoHo in Rotterdam, Netherlands; and Station in Beirut, Lebanon. Diaz’ work has been featured

in publications including The Los Angeles Times, artnet news, Artillery Magazine, Hyperallergic, Architectural

Digest, Detroit Metro Times, and Artsy. Her work is included in various private and public collections including

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, University of California Los Angeles, and the Arab American National

Museum. Diaz lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.

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Featured above, from "Women Making History": slow roll, 2023, Silk-rayon fiber etching, hand-embroidery,

rhinestones, appliqué, 36”H x 30”W