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
 

Unearthed exhibition - Syrian Artist Responds to Conflict in his Homeland

Unearthed (in Memoriam), 2014, repurposed book covers/credit: Emma K Freeman

I love artist studios with their works in progress scattered all over, tools and material everywhere, the smell of paint and that special light, so I was delighted when Issam Kourbaj invited me to visit his studio in Cambrige.  Koubaj is a Syrian artist living in the UK, currently working on Unearthed, a exhibition inspited by the conflict in Syria.  I spent an afternoon in his attic studio and another at the P21 Gallery in London where Unearthed opens on July 4 and runs until August 16. I watched as he put the final touch to his pieces and listened to the processes and stories behind them. Each piece is his reflection on the conflict in Syria, but also carries fragments from his childhood in Swaida, a small village built from black volcanic stone in the mountains south of Damascus. 

Kourbaj is a wonderful storyteller, so I wish I could tell his stories here. Instead, I wrote this article about the exhibition. You can also read it on the Huffington Post's website.

Unearthed - Syrian artist responds to the was in his homeland

Over the last three years, Issam Kourbaj, a Syrian artist living in the UK, has been watching from a painful distance the war eviscerating his homeland: its people, its cities and villages, its past and present, and its memory. 

He brings the images of death, destruction and displacement reported by the media to his studio in Cambridge. There, in his attic rooms crammed with all matter of reclaimed objects, he tries to digest, respond and translate the war images into subtle forms "with meaning rather than anger. 

"My work is a quiet gesture, an archive to remember those who have been forgotten, and an invitation to ponder what the future might bring to what's left of my people and of my country," he says.

The result is Unearthed - a mesmerizing and haunting body of work in multimedia: his response to the Syrian conflict, as well as fragments from his childhood in a small village in the Druze mountains south of Damascus. The exhibition opens at the P21 Gallery in London on 4th July and runs until 16th August. 

Kourbaj was born in Syria and studied art, theatre design and architecture in Damascus, St. Petersburg and London. Since 1990, he has lived in Cambridge where he is artist-in-residence at Christ's College and teaches at the university. His work has been widely exhibited and is held in numerous private and public collections, including that of the British Museum.

For this exhibition, he has worked with a wide variety of media, from drawings on paper and photographic and optical work, to large-scale installations made for and assembled in the gallery itself. The exhibition is arranged as a journey, where pieces echo one another and create a multi-layered experience.

Damascus I, 2013, ink, collage and cut-out paper/credit: Emma K Freeman

For example, the exhibition opens with Damascus I, a piece based on an aerial map of the old city. Assembled from loose pages from reclaimed books, inked and sanded, it looks like an ancient wall or perhaps mummified skin. "It is the entire city - its many layers, its history." At end of the exhibition, we see Damascus II. It has a sculptural feel to it. It is the buckled, distorted version of Damascus I - a fragile, skeletal city - a city being destroyed by war.

Damascus II, 2013, ink, collage and cut-out paper/credit: Emma K Freeman

Most of Kourbaj's work is created from "excavated" objects - discarded poster fragments, X-rays plates obtained from a local hospital, sales records from a furniture shop, broken chairs and book covers found in a bookbinder' skip behind his studio. 

The 7-meter long Border, the other side of sky is the reverse side of a huge torn piece of billboard collected from a nearby skip. It looks like the rusty wing of an airplane. Scattered underneath, as if falling from the other side, are tiny pieces of colourful paper like little flecks of hope. "They represent all the people who are trying to cross the border, going to the other side of the sky. They don't know where they are going or whether they are going to make it."

Counting, Alphabetising, 2014, paper, fabric and leather fragments; insect pins/credit: Emma K Freeman

Counting and Alphabetising is a moving, 17-meter-long piece about loss. Small, colourful pieces torn from cardboard, fabric and leather book covers ("but they could be pieces of flesh or clothes") are pinned on the wall like butterflies in an immense entomological display. There are tiny ones arranged in neat rows and larger ones more randomly displayed. "They are a sort of archiving of what remains, of the fragility of life." 
 
Part of the same display, After Image was inspired by his mother. "I taught her to read and write. She was almost making drawings instead of writing. I wanted to connect with her and the struggle to make oneself heard or seen." In order to do this, Kourbaj formed his large letters upside down and with his left hand. 

Unhearted (in Memoriam), 2014, repurposed book covers/courtesy of P21

For Unearthed (in Memoriam), the artist covered 18 meters of wall with mounted discarded hardback book covers. Some are painted with bright colours and some are plain, but most have a black line painted across them, reminiscent of the traditional black ribbons used to indicate mourning in many countries. The sheer number of them - "all these lost, redundant books of which only the cover remains" - is a poignant reminder of the growing number of lost lives in Syria. 
 

171 weeks and ongoing..., 2011 onwards, ink on paper//credit: Emma K Freeman

One of the exhibition's last works, 171 weeks and ongoing..., is a diary of the war. Kourbaj started making abstract ink marks on cards (old record sales from a furniture store) during the first week of the conflict and keeps adding a new one every week. "They are inspired by the news, but I re-digest them. The images of the war from the media are too much to take. I needed to filter them."

The P21 Gallery is a London-based non-profit organisation promoting contemporary Middle Eastern and Arab art and culture. Proceeds from the exhibition will be donated to Médecins sans Frontières who are working in Syria.

Exhibition dates: 4th July - 16th August, 2014
Readings by Ruth Padel and Hisham Matar: 16th JulyArtist's talk with Venetia Porter: 23rd JulyCurators' talk with Bibiana Macedo and Louisa Macmillan: 30th July