My Mother's Tender Script

My Mother's Tender ScriptMy Mothers Tender Script is a visual and narrative homage to the life of the artists mother, a Yemeni woman whose world was shaped by early marriage, illiteracy, and societal constraint, yet marked by resilience, memory, and quiet defiance. Central to the project is her address booka handwritten archive of names, numbers, and daily noteswhich became a sanctuary and a bridge between her lived reality and a world of knowledge she was denied access to.

My Mother’s Tender Script is a visual and narrative homage to the life of the artist’s mother, a Yemeni woman whose world was shaped by early marriage, illiteracy, and societal constraint, yet marked by resilience, memory, and quiet defiance. Central to the project is her address book—a handwritten archive of names, numbers, and daily notes—which became a sanctuary and a bridge between her lived reality and a world of knowledge she was denied access to.

Through photographs, archival material, handwritten text, and experimental processes, the book traces the tension between two worlds: the artist’s father, an educated writer and journalist, and her mother, whose sharp memory and repetition compensated for the absence of formal education. The work reflects on memory as survival, repetition as resistance, and the act of writing as an assertion of existence. The book honors a woman who preserved connection, dignity, and identity through tenderness and persistence.

Asiya Al. Sharabi is a Yemeni-American visual artist and photographer whose work explores memory, identity, and women’s lived experiences through photography, archives, and alternative processes. Her practice bridges personal history and collective narratives, centering voices shaped by displacement, resilience, and cultural inheritance.

Author: Asiya Al. Sharabi
Design: Caleb Cain Marcus, Luminosity Lab

ISBN: 978-1-959684-50-3

Dimensions: 6.6 x 9  inches
Number of pages: 132 
Binding: Hardcover Swiss