An Interview with Cover Artist, Sara Haq

Saniya Khalil, Art Editor

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From her artist getaway in Sweden, inside a cozy room, Sara Haq is someone who’s

charisma and warmth is felt with great power even on a Zoom call. She starts with an easy

conversation, and I find out about her love for cats.

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The idea and inspiration behind the piece, she tells me, came to her on the harrowing

anniversary of the genocide against Palestine, the 7th of October 2024. She was in a

state of deep grief and reflection. She tells me that it was difficult to find words to

describe it, the year, everything that had happened. It found its shape as an image:

her kitchen had two pomegranates that called to her.

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She took out her phone, conscious of the symbolism and limitations many

Palestinians face when not having equipment, and the collection began to piece

together. Symbolism in seeds with the pomegranate, founded within history, mythos,

and Palestinian agriculture, and contemplated what it meant to be broken. And then

to grow from that place.

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Influences of nature, she informs me, help to soothe her mind, reconnecting her with

nature to find the soul of life. Nature is a force of healing, everything is alive, the

birds and animals, the trees, she explains.

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She says that now she focuses more on clearing rather than healing. It is a better

choice of word, for her, saying one must look and understand the truth before you

begin the journey to rebuilding and healing, and clarity comes first.

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Her parents moved from Pakistan to the United Kingdom, and though she has lived a

majority of her life in the UK, she still feels the arching shadows of the rich culture of

Pakistan.

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She tells me that the juxtaposition of experiences and cultures all around us is

speaking and has so much to say. That there is no such thing as inanimate objects:

everything – the trees, the birds, the animals, us, we are all equally full of life and

should be seen and recognized for it. That is the root of it, she tells me, it’s important

to keep going back to the things that make you, you.

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As for her advice for creatives? Sara states there really is no message, the work is for

the people to make of it what they will. As an artist, there is no way to control public

consumption. You let people see and understand on their own, in their own time.