Interview: Rania Abdalla Kadafour on “Curried Cauliflower Mujadara”

Rania Abdalla Kadafour is a Sudanese painter and fiber artist based in Boston. She graduated in 2024 with a BFA in Fibers from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. By combining painting and fibers with an ever growing collection of memorabilia, Abdalla Kadafour captures fleeting, delicate memories in an attempt to safekeep them. She’s interested in the ways in which memories and objects collect history overtime, observing the ways in which time slowly molds the sentiment behind her pieces.

Mister: Your piece is called “Curried Cauliflower Lentil Mujadara.” What is this dish, and what does it mean to you?

Rania: So, the piece is actually a depiction of me looking up recipes in my room. It's this recipe that I found when I was trying to have a healthier relationship with food. It was one of the first things that I cooked for myself, but it's also the healthy version of a Middle Eastern dish that I was already familiar with. In retrospect, I would never eat that thing again.

MR: You're writing it off. How does food interact with your creative process?

R: I mean, when I'm not making art, I'm actually usually making something in the kitchen.

MR: I think that's a form of art!

R: Yeah. It’s a much lower pressure form of creating where I can keep my brain and my hands moving without being like, “Oh my God. I made this piece of artwork and now I have to photograph it and share it and submit it.” I just get to eat it.

MR: Yeah, it's for literal consumption.

R: Exactly.

MR: Where did you source your fabric for this piece?

R: The picture is of me in my bedroom and my family when we were in Qatar, and I sourced the fabric during the same trip. I went to the souk. It's an old market, and they have various kinds of tradesmen and merchants. That's where I source all my fabric. I like that I sourced around the same time where I was having all these realizations about my relationship with food.

MR: Can you say a little bit about what it was like growing up in Qatar?

R: Being a black Arab person, there's a certain level of distance that other Arab people want to keep from you. In Qatar, most of the population are immigrants. I was deep in an Arab melting pot. I faced a lot of racism, and I felt othered by a lot of Arab people. I've never been conservative. Even though my parents raised me to be that way. Not just conservative politically but in every aspect of life – the way that I speak, act. Even the way that you move your body – people are conservative about that. I was just never that way, so I didn't have the best experience growing up there. I don't like going back. I only go back to see my parents and every time I go back its..yeah. You know.

MR: Have you ever created in Qatar, and do you feel like that process feels different internally than making art in other places that you've lived?

R: Not really, honestly. I don't feel as censored here but I still did it [in Qatar] anyway. I still talked about the same things I wanted to talk about. And I also feel like my artwork isn't, like, you can't just look at it and be like, "Oh, this is about this." It's not right there in front of you. And I feel like that made it easier for me to say what I wanted.

MR: How do you think your own experiences have informed both the medium and the subject matter of your art?

R: One of the first things that I made growing up was clothes for my dolls. I was really into sewing, and I actually wanted to be a fashion designer as a kid. My grandmother was also an artist, and when we would go to Sudan, we would live in her house. I spent some time sewing and doing crochet with her. Even though my Arabic sucks, I felt like that was one of the ways that we could bond without speaking that much. 

MR:Do you think that making this piece helped you deal with your body image?

R: I feel like this piece captured a moment in time where I felt really hopeful about that part of me. I can look back at the piece and remember what that felt like, even if I took a couple steps backward, I can look at that piece and be like, "oh, there was a point in time when I felt really optimistic about my body and food," and I can get to that point again.

MR: Wow, I really, that's a really great answer. Thank you. I'm also really interested in the sensory experience of making textile art. What does it feel like to pick out the different kinds of fabrics that you're going to use? How do you feel like your senses guide you through the process?

R: It's interesting, because I feel like when I was making this piece, that's when I was coming back to textiles and prior to that I was painting and drawing, and so I felt like I needed to treat the fabric like paper. But it doesn't have that same rigidity at all. So in the beginning, it was actually really frustrating. But I think it's taught me to let go a little bit and not be so meticulous. Because, you know, fabric is gonna fray, it's gonna fold, it's gonna bend, it's gonna wrinkle, it's gonna crease. 

MR: How do you feel you use your art to navigate the world?

R: My art is almost like a timeline of my life. For example, this past year has been crazy stressful. I was in a difficult living environment. I felt like I really used my artwork to cope during that time. I was in my studio ten hours a day. It's nice to just unplug and focus on what your hands are doing, yeah?

MR: You said your grandma taught you how to sew and crochet?

R: I know this is a weird thing in America, but I had a live-in nanny, and she helped raise me, which is pretty normal in Qatar. She knew how to sew a lot of stuff, and she knew how to crochet, and she taught me a lot. And my grandma was also really happy to teach me that kind of stuff.

MR: It's like the saying "it takes a village." I really like that you had all these different sources or mentors to help you get off the ground with that.

R: There were a lot of people, yeah

MR: Our third issue is focused on heritage, ecology and art. Where do you think you fit into each of those buckets?

R: I'm a person who has lived in between a lot of places. I've lived in Qatar, I was born here [in America]. Even like in the pockets of migrants in Qatar, I always felt like I was in-between the things I should have culturally inherited. I feel like I only got half of them, and so I've kind of made my own world for myself. That's how I've personally navigated the world. It's just Rania in another fucking pond, I feel like that's probably how I'm gonna feel it for the rest of my life.

MR: What do you mean when you say that you create a world for yourself?

R: I feel like I don't belong to any certain culture sometimes. Growing up, in my own family they'd say, "you're so westernized." Even though I grew up in an Arab country. I don't know how I turned out this way. I told you, even the values that I have, they're not common in the places that I lived in. Moving here, I feel like I've been able to find more people but at the same time, I still feel a little alien everywhere I go, and I'm okay with it. I've kind of just accepted that. Like, yes, I'm like, Sudanese. But some Sudanese people would be like, "Oh, you don't even properly speak Arabic, you don't even do this, this and that. How can you call yourself that?” I can't, I don't want to call myself an American either. Although I got the passport. I don't know. I just have to like, make my own world sometimes.

MR: Ever since I met you, I’ve felt like you have a very strong sense of self. How do you feel like that informs the art that you make?

R: Last year, I had to write an artist statement, and I kept scrapping them. And then the one that I came to at last was about how my art is my friend that I can tell all of my secrets to and tell all my experiences [to]. Someone who won't judge me or try to put me in a box. I kind of feel like my art is just my friend.

MR: You recently completed an artist residency in Barcelona. How do you feel like that environment, including your peers and mentors, elevated your practice? What was your most significant takeaway from creating art in Spain?

R: While I was there, my art came together in a way that I really loved. I remember at some point, one of the guys who ran the residency, looked at my art and was like, "So, what is it? Is it a painting? Is it a drawing? Or what? There's fabric, so is it like a drawing with on hair on it? What would you call it?" I love that. I love that he got to that point.

MR: Okay, so you're very comfortable with the confusion and the uncertainty.

R: Right. I feel like my whole life just was confusion. I like the confusion.

MR: Well, what excites you about the future?

R: Well, I graduated. So I'm finding out what it's like to be an artist outside of school and what it's like to support yourself. It's been hard for me, but I'm honestly still excited about it. I want to challenge myself and show other people like me that we can do it.

MR: What else should we be looking out for next in Rania world?

R: In Rania world? I received a Collective Futures Fund grant, so I'm hoping to open up my projects to make them more collaborative. Like a sewing circle. I might do one next weekend. My projects have always kind of been very private and pointed inwards. I actually realized recently that what I'm working on now, the subject matter is so much bigger than me that I can't just pick my own brain. I need everyone else's brain, too.