We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ife Al-Din. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ife below.

Ife, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Has your work ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized?

My entire reason for becoming a creative really lies in my being misunderstood and feeling unseen. I think I decided to hide myself at a very young age because of that consistent feeling. I limited what I shared with the world so I couldn’t be misconstrued. However, it only increased a reality of being unseen. I started writing poetry at 7 years old because I didn’t feel like I could express my feelings any other way, but it took a decade before I shared my words with others. I can use a poem to convey a feeling or a painting to convey several of them. It removed the limit of my safe space being my journal and allowed it to become anywhere that I share my creativity. The freedom also aided in my releasing the desire to be understood despite always sharing myself. People will find a reason to misunderstand you no matter what you do.

Ife, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Ife Al-Din is a DC Native and multi hyphenate creative currently innovating through spoken word, visual art, style and event curation. Her writing has been an outlet for her healing and affirmation since childhood and has evolved to touch the hearts of countless audience members. It also made way for her exploration of additional mediums. In 2020, at the start of the pandemic, Ife’s introduction to visual art was through acrylic on canvas and quickly evolved to include collage and multimedia work. These techniques are used as a layering of realities, personhood, and an exploration of how our internal and external worlds interact with one another. Ife uses her art as an extension of her interest in psychology, which she received her undergraduate degree in. She critiques the restless, selfish way the western world socializes us while calling back our individual and collective power. She proposes a world of emotionally evolved, self-sustained individuals and interdependence, which holds the possibility of eliminating escapism and socio-politico-economic injustices altogether. In 2021, Ife began intertwining her poetry and visual art while simultaneously completing her first collection of poems (soon to be self published). At the start of 2022, Ife released the Love Cannot Hold Fear podcast, a vulnerable space where she’s shared her poetry as a means to encourage others. 2022 was the beginning of her emphasis on an intentionally holistic approach to sustainability: emotionally, spiritually, physically, psychologically, economically, and environmentally. In the spring of 2022, Ife hosted her first of many seasonal clothing swaps as an accessible way to discourage our cultural tendency towards textile waste. She also launched ‘dinner + an open mic’ which included a full meal loaded with healing herbs and spices. This intimate monthly open mic became ‘love’s iconic open mic’ by the end of the year and moved to a new, larger location by February 2023 continuing to promote vulnerability. During fall 2022, Ife began exploring a more intentional role as an art activist with the Smithsonian Institute at the Anacostia Community Museum. Currently, she is procuring more opportunities to expand her creative reach through community work while expanding her skillset.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My overall mission is to catalyze a desire for freedom through independent thinking. I appeal to people’s need to be vulnerable, feel seen and embraced by community. I encourage people to feel and observe then understand those feelings instead of repressing them like we are socialized to do. A more tangible goal is to create an arts center for adolescents in systemically deprived communities. It will be an outlet that provides mentors and a pipeline to career paths for those youth and will become a nationwide initiative.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I have spent most of my life riddled with anxiety which led to perfectionism. Painting was one of the first ways I was able to release that. Creating has been a means of revealing, healing and accepting myself. Another of the greatest rewards is sharing a piece that resonates deeply with a viewer or listener’s own experience. It feels like sowing seeds even if I won’t see the fruits of my labor of love. Lastly, the responses I receive to creating a consistent safe space where others are able to free themselves through expression fulfills me in way nothing else does.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: instagram.com/ifetheartist
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@ifetheartist

Image Credits
instagram.com/foriamfire instagram.com/_pearlphotographystudio