Three cheers for multimedia artist and filmmaker Jackie Salloum’s parents! We celebrate the social restrictions you imposed during your daughter’s teenage years. We thank you for not allowing her to go to parties, dances, or on dates. We applaud the clash of your native Arab and adopted American cultures!

For without you, perhaps Jackie wouldn’t have stayed in her room to draw and make collages. Without you maybe she wouldn’t be able to feel that “art was my escape.” Without you Jackie might have squandered her artistic talents without ever creating “art about the disenfranchised, the colonised, and the occupied.”

But she does, seeking to “evoke multiple effects with my work, to make these subjects proud, to fascinate the uninformed...to be a tool for the already engaged.

Born and raised in suburban Michigan to a Palestinian mother and Syrian father, Jackie Salloum grew up speaking Arabic, learning English only when she went to school. Feeling forever the foreigner, and with the constant exposure to only negative images of Arabs in the news and in Hollywood films, she grew up feeling ashamed of being an Arab to the point where she even tried to bleach her hair to fit in during middle school. But her feelings reversed in her teens,
with a twist of candy-coated vengeance.

The result? Gumball machines, dispensing capsules containing magnets, stickers, or rings of your favourite revolutionary or Palestinian refugee – collect all 5 million! Toys, including the Caterrorpillar, “We now run over and kill Americans with impunity!”, a small-size interpretation of the life-size terror machine that is “Helping to build illegal Israeli settlements for generations to come!” Flashcards, a fun and fabulous way to learn what really went down in history. and COLLAGES, motivated by Jackie’s “idea of preserving moments in history that are being erased and distorted by colonial powers.”

Drawing “inspiration from the humble perseverance of [her] family’s struggle in their homeland, Palestine, and as immigrants in the US,” Jackie’s work – including ventures into video – is as well travelled as she is, having been shown in art galleries, museums and film festivals all over the world. “With my recent work in music videos, video art, and documentary, I seek to challenge popular Western perceptions of Arabs and, in particular, Palestinians.”

You still can’t pop down to your local shop for a bit of her provocative treats, but if Jackie had it her way, she’d “like to see the gumball machines and Caterrorpillar toy mass-produced and in stores... my flashcards used in middle school history classes, my music videos on MTV and my upcoming film in the theatres and on TV.” And so would we.