The Moon Is Behind Us
30 letters in response to 30 moons
In the spring of 2020, the artistic collaboration between Fazal Sheikh and Terry Tempest Williams in the American Southwest was suddenly halted by Covid-19. They found themselves in lockdown 5,000 miles apart: Sheikh in Zurich, Switzerland, Tempest Williams in Castle Valley, Utah. Like so many others, they communicated across the days and nights by text and email, reflecting on the state of politics as the pandemic spread across the world.
Looking back over his archive, Sheikh decided to make a gift for Tempest Williams as a gesture of friendship and respect in troubled times. He selected 30 images, one for each year of his life as an artist, corresponding to one complete cycle of the moon. Some months later, a package arrived in Zurich. Inside were 30 letters from Tempest Williams, each responding to a single image, written across 30 days, in another lunar cycle.
Studying Sheikh’s images carefully, even through her grandmother’s magnifying glass, led her to wider, more philosophical considerations of the ways they connected to contemporary events: the politics surrounding the pandemic, climate change, the rise of Black Lives Matter, the advances of women and — the focus of her work with Sheikh — their alliance with Native Nations in the American southwest, supporting Bear Ears National Monument and the protection of these sacred lands.
The spontaneous nature of their correspondence in the middle of the pandemic made it all the more immediate, and when images and words were placed together, both artists where surprised by the intimacy of what they had created in isolation. They felt it could be an offering to others who shared their concerns and might find comfort in the exchanges. This book is the result of a friendship forged through art and their shared desire to collaborate on issues larger than themselves in a world that is broken and beautiful. It is an intimate personal correspondence between two leading political artists at a time of crisis.