For my art, Somalia has been, at times, a muse. For my life, a troublesome blue-blooded truth. I left as a child and returned as a celebrated artist. But it's truly bittersweet, as being celebrated by a famine-struck nation isn't quite the celebration I had dreamt of. Here are some...

It was not my dream to be an artist. How could it have been? I thought artist, much like a leader, was something you either were or weren't. Never something you set out to be. And as a boy in Mogadishu, Somalia, although art plainly encapsulated the world as I...

This essay was originally published in Vogue Italy, November 2008.

When I was a boy, growing up in Mogadishu Somalia, I was not aware of the opinion discrepancy created by the heart's colors. Since the many hearts of the world contain various feelings about whatever the object or subject may...

The thing about charity that we rarely consider is what it steals from those it gives. It seems we've all subscribed to some dogma, ordering that anyone with a few bucks, some organizational skill, or likes Angelina Jolie, can and should help the less fortunate.

I wonder what would happen...