Sherin Guirguis remixes imagery taken from both Western and Islamic cultures to map a global landscape. Born in Luxor, Egypt, she came to the United States in her teens where she pursued her education in art.

Guirguis' interest always lied in the way architecture and objects parallel cultural ideas, and the extent to which both can politicize a space. This question brought her to investigate forms such as mashrabiyyas, lattice wooden screens that appear ubiquitously in north-African Islamic domestic architecture.

In the Islamic world, the mashrabiyya marks the separation between private and public sphere, aiming to protect the personal world from the view of intruders. More specifically, these pierced screens are meant to shelter women from public gaze, allowing them to see without being seen. Guirguis upends the protective function of the mashrabiyya, however, as a specter of an atomic cloud rises from her construction, a pointed commentary on the destructive potential of the nuclear arms race.

Conflict and hybridity are the ideas that resonate in this sculptural installation aptly entitled Mashrabeya. Made of a combination of explosion clouds that are reminiscent of atomic mushrooms, Mashrabeya embodies the hybrid Egyptian/American identity of the artist, and a blend of minimalism and ornament drawn from traditional Islamic patterns-ultimately hinting at the cultural tensions that characterize the current historical moment.