Mohammad Hafez, a Syrian-born artist in exile, saves memories of his home country through dioramas depicting life in Syria before and during the war. His miniature pieces made of scraps of metal, wood and marble create images of life in the war-torn nation.
Hafez, who now lives in Connecticut, relies on recorded voices and images of everyday life in Syria that he captured through his camera before the war started in 2011.
“I recorded everything I could get my hands on. People’s conversations in cafes, the calling for prayers in mosques, the bells of churches, the conversation of a taxi driver and voices of children playing in the courtyard of Umayyad Mosque,” Hafez told VOA.
“All of this reflects spontaneous moments of life in Syria,” he added.
WATCH: Syrian Artist Keeps Alive the Spirit of his Country, People
Reconstruct spirit of Syria
Hafez says he believes art would help him reconstruct the spirit of Syria’s past and present and that it would help him preserve the beauty and diversity of his culture.
One year after the conflict erupted in his country, Hafez found the recordings and images he once captured.
He says he felt he found a new purpose in life and that was to tell the story of his country to the world and preserve memories of his war-torn country for the next generation of Syrian.
“I wanted people to see, feel and hear the buzzing life in each and every artifact,” Hafez said.
“As an artist, my role is to instill hope among my people so we can rebuild our homeland and live in peace and harmony. On this earth there is something worth living for,” Hafez added.
Hafez, a 2018 Yale University Silliman College Fellow, came to the U.S. on a student visa in 2003 and studied architecture at Iowa State University. Once in the U.S., It took him several years to go back to his home country of Syria.
Refugees
The ongoing war in Syria has led millions of Syrians to become refugees or to be internally displaced. In his spare time, Hafez advocates for refugees and their rights.
“You do not need to be a refugee to understand the memories and the feelings of them. We should understand that circumstances forced these people to leave their homes,” Hafez said.
“We should treat them as real humans who share the same feelings as we do,” he added.
Hafez says he wants to represent a common human denominator that connects the Syrian refugees with the rest of the world.
“Many people know [them] as abstract numbers in news. I am trying to tell the stories of the refugees from all religions and backgrounds,” Hafiz said.
Syria remains the country with the highest number of refugees in the world. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates the number of Syrian refugees in neighboring countries reached 6 million, more than 3 million of whom are in Turkey.
“Syria is the biggest humanitarian and refugee crisis of our time, a continuing cause of suffering for millions which should be garnering a groundswell of support around the world,” Filippo Grandi, UNHCR High Commissioner said recently.
Mehdi Jedinia contributed to this report.
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