San Francisco, Day 2: NADIAH

We settle into another night in San Fran at Sean and Nadiah’s house in the lower Haight area. Nadiah, 23, grew up in Bowling Green, Ohio with a Libyan dad and a Mexican mom. She works as a paralegal during the day but wants to do art, and recently had her photography shown at a gallery. Nadiah (left) tells us what many women have told us recently—that she doesn’t consider herself a feminist because she’s not familiar enough with the concepts. “I grew up thinking about issues of race, not gender,” Nadiah says, although she acknowledges that she is engaged in some of the issues that come with it.

The questions turn to Nadiah’s photographs, which are resting on the windowsill across from us. The photos are depicting Nadiah’s version of The Last Supper, with people of color around the table in one shot, white people in another, and a brown-skinned, female Jesus figure in the third (right and below). “As an art history major, I spent a lot of time look at Christian images,” she says, and wanted to revise them. “Does your gender come out in your art?” Emma wonders. Nadiah thinks for a second, then tells us, “Maybe unconciously. I knew I wanted a woman as my Jesus figure. In a way, I identify with the woman in the photo and sort of think of her as me.”

--Nona