CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 4/24/2026

Lost City Books presents Yumna Al-Arashi and Farrah Skeiky on 'Aisha'

Friday, April 24, from 7–8 PM, Lost City Books presents the Washington DC launch of Arab American photographer and filmmaker Yumna Al-Arashi's Aisha, published by Edition Patrick Frey. Al-Arashi returns to her hometown for this enlightening conversation with fellow Arab American photographer and creative director Farrah Skeiky.

Aisha is Yemeni Egyptian American photographer and filmmaker Yumna Al-Arashi’s first artist’s book. This powerful, delicate publication, inspired by Al-Arashi’s great-grandmother, Aisha, is an homage to the lineage of women that she descends from; women of the multidimensional and many-layered landscapes of the MENA region. Searching for an understanding of the tattoos that graced her great-grandmother’s body, Al-Arashi embraces the complexities of a symbolic matriarchal tradition. Unable to visit one of her places of origin, the war-stricken Yemen, Yumna traveled through Northern Africa meeting and photographing a diverse group of women belonging more or less to the same generation: all standing, sitting, looking, moving and laughing with assuredness and joy. By refusing the violence of selection and definition surrounding women’s practices, Al-Arashi publishes every single photograph from her journey in this 392 page monograph, moving the work into an ethereal cinematic celebration.

Al-Arashi’s images are gentle yet strong in composition, conscientiously connecting the woman to the land surrounding her and vice versa; they are incredibly rich in detail and color; and they are intimate, beautifully defiant and full of community and alliance. Aisha also includes Al-Arashi’s writing and poetry in which she reflects on memories of her great-grandmother and the scent of oudh “that left a trail of magic wherever she floated in that home.” In her genre-stretching texts, Al-Arashi also speaks on colonial archives, intergenerational storytelling and on the complexities of transnational female identity in patriarchal, capitalist, and imperialist societies at-large.

Yumna Al-Arashi is an artist, filmmaker and writer whose work straddles the intersection of history, identity and power. Through striking visual compositions, her work reclaims lost narratives, challenges colonial legacies, and redefines the representation of women, the Arab world and the environment with an unflinching, poetic gaze. Her imagery—steeped in myth, memory and resistance—invokes a sense of timelessness, drawing from centuries-old traditions while speaking urgently to contemporary struggles. Through her lens, beauty becomes an act of defiance, and storytelling a form of reclamation.

Farrah Skeiky is an Arab American photographer and creative director based in Washington, DC. Her work is representative of the DC area itself: a confluence of culture and counter-culture with a focus on heritage, identity, and community. She collaborates with artists, artisans, and organizers to tell thoughtful and striking visual stories.

Lost City Books
Yumna Al-Arashi and Farrah Skeiky on 'Aisha'
Friday, April 24, 7–8 PM
2467 18th Street Northwest
Washington, DC 20009

Accessibility note: This event is up two flights of stairs and Lost City Books does not have an elevator. Please contact events@lostcitybookstore.com with questions.