{"id":36665,"date":"2025-04-18T09:13:43","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T07:13:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/?p=36665"},"modified":"2025-04-18T10:41:53","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T08:41:53","slug":"on-forgiveness-and-path-an-exhibition-in-damascus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/on-forgiveness-and-path-an-exhibition-in-damascus\/","title":{"rendered":"On Forgiveness and Path<\/em>\u2014an Exhibition in Damascus"},"content":{"rendered":"
In Damascus, a group of young artists gathers in an unfinished building to stage <\/span>Path<\/span><\/i>, a conceptual art exhibition about forgiveness. Curated by the recently reclaimed Madad Art Foundation, the show navigates memory, trauma and justice in post-Assad Syria. Here, art becomes both sanctuary and reckoning.<\/span><\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

Robert Bociaga<\/span><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

DAMASCUS\u2014<\/span>Somewhere between concrete pillars and skeletal staircases in the unfinished Massar Rose Building in Damascus, Syria, an invisible vibration can be felt. Not a tremor of machinery, but something more intimate \u2014 the slow pulse of reflection.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this half-constructed structure, raw and wind-lashed, 29 Syrian artists have quietly laid out their personal histories. The <\/span>Path<\/span><\/i> exhibition curated by the <\/span>Madad Art Foundation<\/span><\/a>, does not offer answers. It doesn\u2019t even ask questions aloud. Instead, it invites you to step inside something unresolved \u2014 a landscape of grief and transformation, suspended in wire, thread, sound, and silence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Forgiveness is the official theme. But it hangs here like the thick dust in the air \u2014 present, weighty, but difficult to fully articulate. In a country where self-expression is still cloaked in caution, where the boundaries of acceptability shift like shadows, the idea of forgiveness takes on an entirely different texture. What does it mean to forgive in a place where the past is not past, and speech itself may carry consequences?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\"Rala
Rala Tarabishi\u2019s installation “Embed” invites viewers into a circular field (photo Robert Bociaga).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n


\nThe Space Between<\/b><\/h4>\n

The exhibition\u2019s location is not incidental. The Massar Rose Building, shaped like a Damascene rose, is a metaphor in itself \u2014 not for ruin, but for potential. Part of a prestigious architectural project, its construction was <\/span>halted by the war<\/span><\/a> and never resumed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The absence of walls becomes part of the work. Sunlight and wind sweep through the open structure. Rusted rebar juts from concrete beams. And yet, inside this chaos, care has been taken to install fragile works that explore Syria\u2019s most elusive emotional terrain: the desire to let go, to remember, and to move on \u2014 but not without looking back.<\/span><\/p>\n

Visitors step into installations, not around them. The curators resisted the format of the traditional gallery. Instead, they have allowed each work to inhabit its own pocket of space, creating a sense of gentle disorientation. It\u2019s not easy to know where to begin. There is no prescribed order \u2014 just as there is no one way to grieve, or to forgive.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\"The
The sculpture \u201cCrossing,\u201d by Eyad Dayoub with the artist (photo Robert Bociaga).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n


\nWire and Wound<\/b><\/h4>\n

The sculpture \u201cCrossing,\u201d by Eyad Dayoub, stretches across a concrete wall like a bloodied net, its hooks and wires twisting into organic, almost intestinal forms. The material, wire mesh dyed in black and red, evokes both entrapment and resilience. Dayoub turned to wire to express the liminal space between attachment and suffocation \u2014 to a homeland, to memory, to pain.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nearby, \u201cTo Memory, Once More\u201d by Lamia Saida presents a series of canvases that resemble flayed skin or raw meat, stained with crimson and ash tones. They hang from thick chains, suspended like offerings or wounds. These abstract forms are neither fully figural nor entirely symbolic. Instead, they suggest trauma as something cellular \u2014 not an event, but a condition of being. The final piece in her sequence is a canvas marked only by a single clean line, suggesting a moment of peace, or at least containment.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\"Anwar
Anwar Al-Akhdar\u2019s “To Heal” centers on a glowing fetus (photo Robert Bociaga).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Syria, art has often had to function either as state propaganda or as protest. The <\/span>Path<\/span><\/i> exhibition attempts a third route: abstraction as a form of freedom.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nUneven Forgiveness<\/h4>\n

In the inner chamber, Rala Tarabishi\u2019s \u201cEmbed\u201d offers a powerful sensory experience. A circular field of over 300 swords made from resin is embedded at varying depths into the ground. Some nearly disappear into the floor, others stand upright \u2014 unburied, unresolved. The sound of clashing metal reverberates periodically through the room, timed like memory triggers. The work speaks to the unevenness of healing. Forgiveness, in this context, is not a moral imperative but a personal physics \u2014 some burdens sink easily, others resist the earth.<\/p>\n

Around the exhibition, one notices recurring motifs: circles, vibrations, suspended weight, and opposing forces. \u201cElapse\u201d by Judi Chakhachirou situates the viewer in a vibrating ring of sound and movement, at the center of which dangles a wooden tombstone. It conjures the sensation of loss without resolution, death without closure.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nUnstable Ground<\/b><\/h4>\n

What\u2019s particularly striking is the frequency with which instability is intentionally built into the installations. In \u201cAccumulation,\u201d Dalaa Jalanbo uses foam, canvas, and candles to explore the tension between peace and the emotional wreckage of relationships. The paintings, marked by heavy layering, suggest the weight of the past pressing onto even the most well-lit present.<\/span><\/p>\n

In contrast, Anwar Al-Akhdar\u2019s \u201cTo Heal\u201d introduces something unexpectedly tender. A transparent sphere holds a fetus sculpture lit by soft light, hovering inside a plexiglass globe. It evokes not only the idea of rebirth, but the need to forgive oneself. Forgiveness, here, is interior \u2014 not reconciliation with others, but a coming to terms with one\u2019s own scars.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nFreedom in Absence<\/b><\/h4>\n

All of this unfolds in a space where political critique is not explicit, and perhaps cannot be. The curators have emphasized the exhibition avoids direct references to politics, not out of denial, but as a deliberate strategy to protect the autonomy of the artists and allow for layered expression. In Syria, art has often had to function either as state propaganda or as protest. The <\/span>Path<\/span><\/i> exhibition attempts a third route: abstraction as a form of freedom.<\/span><\/p>\n

This freedom, however, remains <\/span>uncertain<\/span><\/a>. Many artists have already left the country. Several works were sent from abroad \u2014 France, the Czech Republic, the UAE \u2014 by former students of Damascus\u2019s Faculty of Fine Arts. Even those still working locally express their concerns in metaphor, material, or gesture rather than in language. The exhibition includes poetic statements by the artists that toe the line between coded protest and metaphysical rumination. \u201cMy country is my favorite wound,\u201d reads one. Another wonders, \u201cAre we really different, or just different faces of the same story?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

These lines resonate more as testimony than slogan \u2014 not calls to action, but quiet survivals.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\"Rasool
Rasool Awari, “Ego Killing,” an installation exploring the emotional journey of forgiveness, with eight wooden poles suspending a central mass to symbolize ego release and inner liberation (courtesy Madad Art Foundation).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n


\nA Collective Rehearsal for Peace<\/b><\/h4>\n

There is a theatrical quality to how the public interacts with these works. Unlike in Western contemporary spaces where conceptual art is often met with distance or skepticism, here there is a raw openness. Visitors pause, kneel, touch, and often cry. The exhibition becomes not just a site of artistic display, but a temporary zone of emotional permission.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is no small achievement in a country where <\/span>feeling<\/span><\/a> has long been a liability. To mourn, to remember, to express grief \u2014 these are gestures that for years have been deferred or displaced.<\/span> Path<\/span><\/i> does not promise catharsis. But it offers an architecture for it.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nRebuilding More Than Walls<\/b><\/h4>\n

The Madad Art Foundation, once a haven for young Syrian artists and founded by the late <\/span>Dr. Buthayna Ali<\/span><\/a>, became the subject of a dramatic showdown just weeks after the regime\u2019s collapse. Armed men attempted to seize its premises in Damascus \u2014 not for art, but as supposed spoils of war. The takeover, swift and undocumented, was halted only after Syria\u2019s creative community erupted in protest online. The outcry forced the new authorities to return the property, reaffirming the fragile but growing power of public cultural resistance in a post-Assad Syria.<\/span><\/p>\n

Against this volatile backdrop, Madad\u2019s reopening is more than a return \u2014 it\u2019s a resurrection. The foundation now stands not just as a venue but as a symbol of what can still be reclaimed. Its latest exhibition, <\/span>Path<\/span><\/i>, emerges from the very tensions that nearly erased it. Here, forgiveness is more than a theme; it is the context. The show is a quiet act of defiance \u2014 a reminder that rebuilding begins not with bricks, but with the right to imagine.<\/span><\/p>\n


\n\u201cWe Are Still Here\u201d<\/b><\/h4>\n

The exhibition closes with a collective declaration from the Madad Art Foundation, printed in the exhibition booklet: \u201cWe are here, we are still here, and we are from here. A path of 29 stories, similar to stories of all Syrians.\u201d In their simplicity, the words resonate with defiance and care. This is not a claim of triumph. It is a whisper of continuity.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a place where the future remains unknowable and the present is saturated with past wounds, <\/span>Path<\/span><\/i> does not offer resolution. It offers presence.<\/span><\/p>\n

And in Syria, where wounds have names and silence has been weaponized, the most radical gesture may be the insistence on remembering \u2014 and the demand, at last, for <\/span>justice<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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