Mohamad Hafez (Syrian, working in Ohio)
Baggage #1 (four views) - plaster, paint, antique suitcase, found objects, rusted metal, wood, Persian carpet - 24″x 24"x 12" (61 x 61 x 30 cm)
Baggage #2 (two views) - plaster, paint, antique suitcase, found objects, rusted metal, wood, Persian carpet, dried plant - 24″x 16"x 10″ (61 x 40 x 25 cm)
Baggage #5 (three views) - plaster, paint, antique suitcase, found objects, rusted metal, wood - 24"x 28"x 10" (61 x 71 x 25 cm)
Framed Nostalgia 1 (two views) - 31"x 37"x 10" - 2019
Damascene Athan Series: Land Cruiser (two views) - 34"x 24"x 8" - 2018
With his Baggage series, Hafez creates visual models of life narratives experienced by refugees of war. In Hafez’s rendering the suitcase references the backpacks of Syrians fleeing war with only their bare necessities; refugees travel light not for ease or efficiency, but because their journeys are so dangerous and arduous. They fear detention and stray bullets, deprivation of food and water. Their fates are often in the hands of smugglers who routinely exploit them, promising safety for a price, but then squeezing them onto boats and fitting them with faulty, deadly life jackets. Smugglers often force refugees to shed whatever meager belongings they are carrying with them, tossing bags to pack the boats tighter with people or frantically dumping extra weight once the boats begin leaking. Hafez utilizes the suitcase to explore both the politics and personal losses of compulsory departure, referencing what is relinquished and left behind. This scene is bereft of human presence yet alludes to state security practices in the surveillance camera at left.
”Damascene Athan emerges from recordings I made during my last visit to Damascus in 2011, on the eve of the Syrian War. I integrated those final few moments of peace into the decorative mirror frames which remind me of the plush Victorian interiors we had to leave behind. The daily calls to prayer from the Great Umayyad Mosque of Damascus can be heard in the background, and Islamic calligraphic graffiti decorates the walls. In 2011, although life seemed very peaceful at the time, one could not help but feel a greater danger looming over Damascus, fueled by the Arab Spring momentum and the demonstrations that had already started in southern Syria. The heavy presence of security forces and 'police' trucks signaled to me, a larger preparation for what was to come next. The Toyota truck included in the work is a vehicle notoriously used by Syrian secret service. Having this vehicle parked outside anyone’s house meant bad news. While flowers and jasmine ivy continued to peacefully grow on our architecture, so did fear and stress depicted in surveillance cameras. The contrast between what I recorded and what I witnessed reveals the complexity of what one experiences at the cusp of a vicious war in their homeland.
Stuck in nostalgia, and heeling from war atrocities, Syrians across the globe struggle to comprehend all that had happened. When we look in a mirror, we no longer see ourselves… we see all of that emotional baggage present.”
http://www.mohamadhafez.com/
