“Hi, my name is Mellina Mallah. I’m an artist and a student. I’ve lived in Centretown for almost 3 years in May and living here has really inspired my creativity. I’m surrounded by art in the community. The Canada Council for the Art, City Hall art galleries are all nearby. I also love doing photo walks. Right now, I’m working in the hospitality industry on Metcalfe Street. I’m there part-time during my studies.
The medium for my art is ink. This process started with me journalling. I have a journaling practice that I’ve continued for five years, and it documented a lot of my healing, integration and growth through intergenerational trauma. The foundation of my work is the anger that was never allowed to be felt by getting your agency taken away, by getting your autonomy stripped away, and this is generations before me. The art that I’m creating inspires me to keep going, and it really, it gives me a purpose of creating a better future for my future generations to come. I think my art is giving me a voice that I was silenced before and now I feel like I have that voice and I’m strengthening that voice every day. I also feel like when I’m creating, there’s no barriers and no boundaries, and I’m just free to express and be me, and it’s the most freeing feeling to have tapped into my creativity, my creative flow, and expression helps me to connect with others and create more connection, deeper, meaningful connections to everyone that I meet every day. And I think that’s what art does. It just reminds us that we are all connected.
My work is titled Unmute. It is about a body of work that represents reclamation of voice. It’s a body of work that represents letting yourself feel everything and learning that you’re trauma and your pain are now all for nothing and there is beauty and everything that you go through in life and when you’re listening to your heart and when you’re following your heart in anything that calls you, you can’t really make the wrong decision and that’s something with art and journaling that I’m learning more and more
I’m open to conversations and collaborations. I am very much in the mixed media scene right now and I’m looking to do more visual image, capturing, and kind of distortion of graphic design of a video that I’m creating as a part of Unmute. And my work can be found on Instagram and website. It’s www.Melinamallah.art and that is where you’ll find my work, what I’m working on right now, how to book with me if you’re interested in working with me and collaborating, I’d love to connect.”
