Farah Salem (b.1991,Kuwait) is an interdisciplinary artist and somatic art therapist; these two practices exist independently, however, they intersect in her professional training, informing her artistic exploration of how trauma manifests in the body, while incorporating tools from ancestral healing wisdom for the recovery of the somatic experience while relating to the natural world. Her visual arts practice rooted in photography expands through video, sound, performance and installation finding subtle affinities between geologic time, somatic movement, gendered trauma, and Arabian Peninsula ceremonial healing rituals. Through relational merging and mapping of human and geologic bodies, she envisions their liberation by examining themes of agency, making the invisible visible, and the potential erosion of socio-cultural conditioning.
Farah works with the human body as a site of transgenerational experiences, a container of memory, perception, in correspondence to geologic time. Exploring how land formations shaped by weathering and erosion parallel our human bodies’ vast inner worlds, shaped by a range of emotions. Although primary events of weathering and grief pass, their residue remains- evident in sculpted canyon walls and subtle shifts within human nervous systems. Farah challenges societal inclinations to minimize geologic and emotional changes, exposing how dissociation from our bodies is mirrored in disembodiment and disosiation from the land. She examines relationships between them when encountering extraction from stability, instability. From forced or chosen migration. She examines how bodies and landscapes are constantly in flux, against the backdrop of time, a vital force shaping endurance in the face of change and redefining agency in our adaptability.
Farah holds a Master of Arts in Art Therapy and Counseling from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her artwork has been featured nationally and internationally at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago), EXPO CHICAGO, American University Museum (Washington D.C.), United Photo Industries/Photoville Gallery (New York), Patel Brown (Toronto), Engage Gallery (Chicago), Bolivia Biennial, Paris Contemporary Art Fair, Sharjah Art Foundation (UAE), and Contemporary Art Platform (Kuwait). Farah completed the Radicle Studio Residency at Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago), Hatch Residency at Chicago Artists Coalition, ACRE Artist Residency (Steuben), Per|Form at Contemporary Art Platform (Kuwait) and Journey to Turkey Residency with Crossway Foundation (Turkey/UK).
The Covenant: A rite of protection, 2023
Performance Photography, Cowrie reimagined ceremonial headdress
Featured Artworks
Lithostatic 4, 2022
Image by Farah Salem
Lithostatic 1 (Wall Installation), 2023
Image by Tran Tran
Framed inkjet photographic prints, and photographic print on phototex wall installation
Uninhibited Headdress and Manjour of Freedom on Topographic Desert Landscape, 2023
Image by Steven Piper
Percussions of Reconciliation (Feet Drum 1 & 2), 2025
Image by Farah Salem
Power to See, 2019
Image by Farah Salem
Re-imaging Earthly Sounds 3, 2025
Image by Mikey Mosher
Uninhibited: People of the Earth (Video Installation), 2023
Image by Darren Rigo
Performance Video montaged with Archival footage, Sand, Floor Seat
Installation of Canyon Wall (Front wall), Uninhibited People of the Earth Video (Center Floor), and Wind-Light Warped Thresholds (back wall), 2025
Image by Mikey Mosher
Installation of The Covenant 3 and 4 (Right) Amulets for the Wanderer within Fidwa Frames 1 (Right), 2025
Image by Mikey Mosher
An Evening of Spirited Sound-Making, 2025
Image by Ricardo Adame