In 2003, an anonymous young woman in Baghdad, Iraq started a blog under the pseudonym Riverbend. She documented everyday life under American occupation, posting about everything from the anxieties of war to the complexities of presidential politics to the small comforts of family life. For readers around the world, Riverbend harnessed the power of the early internet to crack open Western propaganda about the Iraqi people.

Inspired by this legacy, San Francisco-based artist Maryam Yousif blends her own experience with Riverbend’s narrative. Wooden architectural structures frame snippets of Yousif’s early memories growing up in Baghdad. Women’s faces, channeling modernist painter Jewad Selim, gaze out at us from their windows. Ducks perch on trees, bridges, and doorways. A teapot and tray wait patiently for their guests. One lone palm tree floats disconnected from its roots.

By “drawing with clay,” Yousif mimics the expressive lines and curvature typical of mid century Iraqi Modernism. Her techniques connect the rich legacy of Bay Area Funk ceramics to Mesopotamian and Assyrian antiquities. Riverbend’s flattened elements—a new approach for Yousif—nod to ancient relief sculptures, caught between the second and third dimensions. The medium of clay itself bridges past and present—once fired, ceramics do not decompose. Like the blogger recording the shifting world around her, and the ceramic women making their witnessing known, Maryam Yousif asks: “what am I making permanent?”

Riverbend is Maryam Yousif’s first museum solo exhibition.