New Haven’s Mohamad Hafez, a Syrian refugee, tells story through art
By N.F. Ambery
New Haven Register
A New Haven artist has decided to take up the volatile subject of the Syrian Civil War in his work. Syrian-American artist Mohamad Hafez of New Haven will exhibit multimedia sculptures inspired by the civil war in “Unsettled Nostalgia,” which shows through Feb. 27 at the harts gallery, 20 Bank St., in New Milford.
Hafez uses plaster, rigid foam, paint, architectural models, LED lights and sound recordings to depict the war’s human impact.
Hafez’s works do not show any human figures, yet the sculptures of war-torn rubble of buildings exhibit meaningful Koran passages and shows the prevailing spirit to find a new way and peace from a war that has so far killed 250,000 and displaced 22 million people.
For Hafez, who grew up in Damascus, Syria’s capital, the destruction of his native land has had a significant impact on his development as an artist. In using found objects in his sculptures, Hafez said: “I may come upon some old machinery, but I will see bombed-out architecture and streetscapes, which I will fashion out of plaster and other materials. You might see the object as a toaster, but I will make it into a dungeon.”
“The object tells me what it wants to be,” Hafez explained. “Then I think, ‘I can build on the idea. I can turn it into a statement.’”
He says he is not interested in politics, just the aftermath, the unseen and “the psychology of loss.” One of his installations, “A Refugee Nation,” is an example of this process. The work is suspended from the ceiling and hung upside-down. An antique typewriter case contains plaster renderings of a war-torn city dangling from inside, suggesting displaced populations in free fall.
The creation process for each sculpture can take anywhere from two to six months, he said.
“It depends on how big the object is. There is no stopping point. There is always more detail to add.”
Hafez described his busy, cluttered, home art studio on Rhea Street as “a war zone.” He shares the space with his nutritionist wife, Dania Ghassoub, who was also born in Damascus but moved to Oklahoma 12 years ago.
Hafez works as an architect for an international design firm that erects office skyscrapers. His parents, his brother and two sisters escaped to other parts of the Middle East shortly after Syria’s war began in earnest.
Hafez says the last time he was in Damascus was in 2011, shortly after the revolution began. He still has a personal connection to his native country, and recent violent events in Syria have been stressful.
“It’s been very tough to deal with,” he said. “Yet in my work, I have a drive in what I do. I want to raise awareness of what is going on by my work.”
When asked if he thought his former hometown’s situation would get better, Hafez said, “I hope so. I don’t know. It is a conflict that has several hands in it. There are multiple players. These kinds of wars tend to take a long time.” But then added, “Or the war can end in one day.”
Evan Abramson, founder and director of the 6-month-old harts gallery, the home of Hafez’s exhibit, said he got acquainted with Hafez’s work through a local artist and friend.
“He’s talking about a very tragic situation, the total destruction of Syria as a result of the civil war and the massive refugee crisis that has ensued,” Abramson said. “But he’s doing it in such a poetic, beautiful and heartfelt way. Not to mention the technical skill behind it all, the architectural eye that he has in creating every detail, his use of found objects and the new meaning given to those objects through the miniature scale that he employs.”
The graffiti Hafez uses in his sculptures often quotes from the Koran. One of his recent pieces, “Un-Faced,” depicts a destroyed neighborhood. In the center of the tableau of gray rubble, Hafez used a verse in red on a white background. The message is from the Koran, paraphrased from Arabic: “Do not think that God is unaware of deeds. There shall be a day when they stir in horror.”
“It is for the families of the wounded and the affected to show that justice will prevail,” Hafez explained. “Not necessarily in our lifetime, but it will prevail.”
Hafez studied first electrical engineering and then architecture at Iowa State University from 2003 to 2009.
“During my freshman year in college I was sick and could not travel back home. I was very homesick at that age. I collected discarded architectural models from the classes.” He would reconstruct models of the streets of his “beloved hometown.”
After constructing such dioramas, Hafez realized, “I had the model-making skills down. Next the works become politically charged. This came after the revolution.”
The destruction in Syria informed a new aesthetic in his work.
“In photographs of streetscapes and bombed-out neighborhood buildings, you can’t recognize what is top and bottom,” he said. “You might recognize part of a building only. The chaos informed a dark and pessimistic aesthetic in me.”
Sped-up time-lapse video posted on the harts gallery’s website showed the at-present untitled installation being hung by Hafez and others in the space. As technical assistants come and go in the video to hang objects, what comes into view is a 13-foot, weathered rubber raft hanging upside-down from the ceiling. Hafez said that “falling” from the raft will be suspended plaster pieces of model buildings.
“This is what we are all carrying with us,” he said.
The overturned raft also exhibits the real risk of life many refugees take in crossing the ocean in unstable vessels.
“It is meant to show the world the amount of personal devastation it takes for a parent to put a child in a little boat to sail across the sea,” he said. “It shows neighborhoods destroyed. I want people to experience what the families do.”
While he has created a new life in the U.S., Hafez said he is equally tied to his home country.
“Eventually I’d love to have a part in rebuilding my country,” he said. “Will I be able to do that in my lifetime? I don’t know.”
Source: www.nhregister.com