Interdisciplinary artist Doris Bittar explores shared historical legacies through patterns and decorative motifs. She states, “Patterns are evidence of migratory cultural DNA that pivot, overlap, mutate, and transform in tandem with the history of human migration.” Bittar’s latest project Colonial Colonnade layers Arabic words over and under their English translations. The words collide and blend to transform shape and meaning. The assembled installation of words follow an Arabic star pattern to create a collaborative and experimental environment for artists, musicians, dancers, and poets. Doris Bittar’s art is in several national and international museum collections. She is a member of ArabAmp, a founding member of Gulf Labor, Public Address, and Feminist Image Group-FIG. Bittar has published over 70 essays, commentaries, and reviews on contemporary Arab art, politics, film, and poetry. She serves on the San Diego Union-Tribune Advisory Board amplifying Arab American voices. Bittar’s lifelong commitments to human rights and peace include founding Teach & Learn Literacy-TaLL, an English as a second language program for Syrian refugees and four Jewish-Palestinian Diaglogue groups. Currently Bittar is the California Organizer for the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee-ADC. Bittar, born in Baghdad, Iraq to Lebanese and Palestinian parents, immigrated as a child to New York. She received her BFA from the State University of New York and her MFA from the University of California, San Diego. She taught for over 20 years at the University of California San Diego, the American University of Beirut, among others, and was a visiting scholar at New York University in 2017.