Artistic Projects and practices, Nawar Alhusari

Noise of isolation01

ضوضاء العزلة

A multimedia project documents and addresses the subjective experience and relation with terminologies from the pandemic spread and its circumstances between home quarantine and social distancing "protocols".
The project outputs present graphic and visual embodiment of 120 terms and concepts, reflecting the relationship of the expatriate Syrian individual with multilingual, yet intersected political and social contexts.

The project examines the substantial impact of social narratives and political discourses on individuals' anxieties and their awareness of their daily reality. It explores the role of artistic practice as an empowering tool for individuals to connect and interact with elements from the socio-political context surrounding them, within an ongoing and expanding reality of uncertainty and physical and social isolation.

The project, in its first stage in the year 2021, employed linoleum printing techniques on medical masks, testing this medium through practice, considering it a unifying medium, and visual and conceptual memory of that period. Additionally, it incorporated the digital processing of these terms to address the intensified relationship with media, during that period and the intersection of multiple crises and events within a single era.

Implemented as part of the Pilotenkeuche residency program R48.
Nominated to the Linolschnitt heute XII Graphic Prize der Stadt Bietigheim-Bissingen, Städtische Galerie, Bietigheim-Bissingen.
Supported by Ettijahat Independent Culture.

Daily Dose

Short video installation: part of the project "Noise of Isolation".

جرعة يومية

All Homes Are Temporary

This project proposes the concept of home, from the perception of refugee camp residents I met in Bekaa, Lebanon near the Syrian border.

Over time, tents which are supposed to be temporary “homes” become a reality and part of the present for these displaced communities, and the idea of these white plastic sheets has become part of their collective awareness, and part of the visual identity that covers stories and narratives of the individuals inside the camps.
In my visits to Damascus and Beirut, I saw these sheets hung and used for different purposes, in construction works, maintenance, and transportation, in the suburbs and the old city. It felt as if these sheets were seeping out of the camps, taking part in the cities and the urban space, molding their “temporary past” into a “permanent present".

The project, through the medium used and the message it represents, addresses the changes in our consideration of home as a concept, from a safe, warm, and stable place to an insecure, unstable, and temporary one.

Independent Present

In his article “Reasons for the Current Upsurge in Memory,” Pierre Nora discusses how the temporality of events can affect how groups or audiences recall essential memories. These memories, which are perceived as their own “independent” ones, help them understand and react to the present and the immediate challenges they face.