Another Day Lost - Mapping Syrian Refugee Camps

Another Day Lost: 1,579 days and counting.../Installation by Issam Kourbaj

        
 
If you live in London, make sure to see the haunting installations by my friend, Syrian-born, Cambridge-based artist Issam Kourbaj, evoking the plight of his fellow Syrians in refugee camps scattered all over Syria and neighbouring countries. The installations are part of London-wide festival, Shubbak: A Window on Contemporary Arab Culture, between 11^th July and 26^th July. 

Taking the title of a Fairouz song, these five installations by Kourbaj are inspired by and based upon refugee camps. Each installation is constructed from imagined camp waste products, such as educational material, books and medical packaging, and is encircled with a fence of 1,579 burnt matches. The matches, which increase in number over the course of the exhibition, count the irretrievable days since the Syrian uprising (15th March 2011).

Another Day Lost: 1,579 days and counting.../Installation by Issam Kourbaj

By repurposing discarded materials and extinguished matches, Kourbaj laments not only the loss of time, normality and everyday life for Syrians everywhere, but also the poor quality of life experienced by his compatriots in their displacement. The installations are scattered around central London, in a pattern that loosely relates to the diaspora of refugee camps that have arisen in the countries bordering Syria over the last four years.

" I am counting the days since the uprising; it is more than 1500 days and I am still counting. My homeland, 'the country formerly known as Syria'* is torn apart; its cities are turned to dust, millions of my fellow Syrian families, women and children are daily forced to flee this largest humanitarian crisis in the world.

Though life continues in refugee camps throughout the region, with the help of many generous organisations such as UNHCR and MSF and others, the displaced millions now bear a lasting trail of visible and invisible scars caused by the conflict, the separation from their homeland and the scars of permanent loss.
Over the last four years, I have witnessed from this painful distance the way these vulnerable human beings are waiting in makeshift shelters they call home, and I fear for their lives are on hold and many are becoming citizens of a tent. "

Kourbaj was born in Syria and studied art in Damascus and St Petersburg, before settling in the UK. He currently teaches at the University of Cambridge, where he is Lector at Christ's College. Since the 2011 revolution, Kourbaj has been making work based on the horrors of the war in Syria, raising awareness and money for projects and aid in Syria.

The catalogue of Another Day Lost is on sale at each location, with contributions by Nabil Almulhem, Paul Connerton, Tarek Fustok, Kevin Hart, Martin Johnson, Tim Knox, Issam Kourbaj, Louisa Macmillan, Polly Markandya, Bill Norris, Eva Schmitt, Eckhard Thiemann, Laurence Topham, Gonzalo Vargas Llosa and Lucy Winkett. Proceeds will go to MSF and UNHCR. You can also donate to these charities directly, as well as to preorder artworks to be made out of these installations after the exhibition finishes.


 *As described in The Economist, "Syria's civil war: The country formerly known as Syria" (23rd February, 2013).  

Another Day Lost: 1,579 days and counting.../Installation by Issam Kourbaj

Conversation with the artist St James's Church, Piccadilly Wednesday 22nd July 6:30–7:30pm Issam Kourbaj in conversation with curator Louisa Macmillan at St James's Church, Piccadilly (free, no booking required, donations most welcome)
St James's Day celebrations St James's Church, Piccadilly Sunday 26th Julyfrom 1pm Members of the public are invited to join in the deinstallation of one of the camps, with opportunity to buy some of the artworks, as part of the St James's Day celebrations at St James's Church

LOCATIONS
St James's Church
197 Piccadilly, London W1J 9LL Mon–Sat 9am–6pm. Sun 1–6pm
10 Golborne Road
10 Golborne Road, London W10 5PE Mon–Sun 10am–6pm
Goethe-Institut London
50 Princes Gate, Exhibition Road, SW7 2PH Mon–Fri 8:30am–7pm. Sat8:30am–5pm
Heath Street Baptist Church
84 Heath Street, London NW3 1DN Mon–Sun 10am–6pm
Central Books
99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN Mon–Fri 9am–5pm. Sat 11th July 9am–5pm


-->Supported by: Goethe Institute, St James's Church Piccadilly, Heath Street Baptist Church, Central Books, Cambridge School of Visual & Performing Arts
 

The dark side of Michelangelo’s white marble

 

Credit: Andrea Ribolini

--> I had never seen anything like this: from the air, the marble mountains in the three valleys of Torano, Miseglia and Colonnata around Carrara in Tuscany look as though they are covered in snow. From close up, the high vertical faces and giant benches of the open cast excavations look like gigantic white cathedrals in a moonscape. This is the world’s largest marble field, formed in the Apuan Alps over 200 million years.  It is breath-taking. 

The marble mountains have been mined continuously since the Roman times: they provide the whitest and most sought-after marble in the world.  Michelangelo selected stones for his iconic David and Pietà statues there, and countless of other artists across centuries and continents have been bewitched by this stone. The cathedrals of Florence and Siena, St Petersburg’s Hermitage museum, the Marble Arch in London and Washington’s Kennedy Centre are all made from this celebrated marble.

For centuries, the marble has been the backbone of the region’s economy and its pride.  But now, globalisation, market forces and new excavation techniques have turned into a curse. An irreplaceable stone is being undersold, most of the small workshops where marble was carved have disappeared, a rare craft is dying and the environment is wrecked. 

Credit: Andrea Ribolini

 

Credit: Veronique Mistiaen

This is a business with a yearly turnover of between €700 and €800 millions, but the only beneficiaries are a few powerful families and businesses, while the town is blighted by the side effects of excavation – especially the dust and flooding. Despite its extraordinary natural resources, Carrara, a town of 66,000 inhabitants, is one of the poorest in Tuscany and one of the most heavily indebted in the country.

You can see the story I wrote with Chiara Briganti, an academic, painter and native of Carrara, for Newsweek here.

It was a slippery and complex story, which took us several years to research. It was nearly impossible to find official figures on basic facts such as the number of people working in the quarries and marble industry, the volume of excavation, the value of the stone and so on. The more we learned, the murkier the story seemed to become. It felt like all information around the marble industry was kept as nebulous as possible, so people wouldn’t look too closely. And as locals say, “when someone doesn’t want you to look too closely, it’s usually because the mafia is involved.”

Credit: Andrea Ribolini

During the few years we reported on the story, we could clearly see the terrible toll mining was exacting on the mountains: peaks were chopped off (although quarrying is prohibited above 1,200m), the shape of the mountains irreversibly altered, the water sources contaminated, the river white and swollen with marble debris.

As an outsider, it was hard to understand why the city allowed this level of reckless excavation to happen and why citizens didn’t  boot them out of office. Everyone I asked, always replied: “This is Italy” – meaning that a combination of corruption, inertia, respect for traditions and fear of the marble barons and the mafia maintained the status quo.

Lately, though, a growing number of locals, environmental groups, academics and artists have united under the banner of “Salviamo le Apuane”  (Save the Apuan Alps), organizing rallies, petitions and demonstrations – and they are gaining momentum.  But whenever they seem to be achieving some success, it is taken away…

#OwnTheMedia: Positive News Becomes Global Media Cooperative

Positive News Editor-in-Chief Sean Dagan Wood and Journalist Danielle Batist

Positive News started on a kitchen table in a farm tucked away in rural Shropshire some 22 years ago.  It is the world’s leading and longest-established publication dedicated to positive and solution-focused journalism. A magazine writing about kindness, cooperation, creativity and innovation - a breath of fresh air in a media where news too often means problems, conflicts, wars, crimes, tragedy: the old  “if it bleeds, it leads” approach.

The publication is now based in London, has a circulation of 60,000, a strong social media presence, and its construtive approach is increasingly attracting interest from other media.

The idea that news has to be something that’s broken is slowly being questioned by media outlets all over the world – and not just by alternative media.  Mainstream media like the New York Times, the Huffington Post, Al Jazeera and many more are experimenting with solution-focused sections and a more balanced news agenda.

Studies have shown that news with a negative bias tend to leave audiences feeling powerless, bored, frustrated, disengaged and less likely to get involved or contribute financially. The opposite is true for news with a more positive slant.   This does matter: journalists say they need to report on what’s happening in the world - and too bad if it makes people feel bad, and I tend to agree. But journalists are not doing their job if they produce switched-off, disengaged citizens.

As Positive News has pioneered a more positive form of journalism, it is now pioneering a new way to finance and run a media business. It needs to innovate to become sustainable and to meet the growing demand for its journalism, so it is becoming the first crowdfunded global media cooperative, owned by their readers and journalists. 

Positive News editor-in-chief, Seán Dagan Wood, said: “We’re seeing a growing public demand for our journalism, as well as increasing interest in our approach from other media. Cooperative ownership is the perfect way forward to raise investment while protecting our ethos.”

They launched their #OwnTheMedia crowdfunding campaign at Nesta yesterday to reach the £200,000 they need to secure and grow the organisation. Amazingly, the campaign has already reached £68,800, last time I looked, and new investments are coming in all the time.

 The funding will help Positive News expand their core team, develop their new website, relaunch their print publication into a magazine and build the audience and the income streams that will help sustain them in the long-term.

I’ve written for Positive News for a few years and love what they do and stand for.

If you want to join a community of people with shared values and be part of the first crowdfunded global media co-operative, please join the #OwnTheMediacampaign