Rebelling against Terrorism - Syrian Conflict

The exhibition “Syria – Story of a Conflict” encouraged me to design an striking object based on the topic terrorism and war.

Before I started with my design I researched the causes of the war.

The trouble began in 2011 in the Syrian city of Deraa.
People started protesting peacefully after 15 schoolchildren were arrested and tortured. They insert for democracy, the release of the children and freedom for Syrian´s population.

Responding to that the government sent the army to open fire on protesters and killed four people. People were shocked and angry so they demanded that President Bashar al-Assad resign which he did refuse. That caused riot in Syria´s people.

However, the President still had a lot of supporters and therefore a fight between the government and opposition started.

The conflict increased further to civil war in July in 2012. 

The thought of human being responsible for but also victims of war encouraged me to create a wearable cape because that draws attention to them and hopefully forces people to stop killings and torture.

The cape should look more like a ripped fabric which is wrapped around a person with no arm holes so the person feels and looks trapped in that cape. Wrapping also some wire around the cape underlines that impression.

The ripped fabric is a reminder of poverty of Syria´s population and is a synonym for the destroyed houses and Syria´s lost structure lines.
Because of the fact that everybody such as boys and girls are involved in the conflict the cape has no special cut and is wearable for both genders.

Pieces of trash bags which are attached by wire symbolizes famine in the country.

Different words and images are painted randomly on the cape to convey the unstructured lifestyle people have during war.

The red words “no killings”, “no torture” and “help” are written in an aggressively way. Contrasting to those are the words “STOP WAR” which are written softly but conspicuous.

The colour red reminds on blood.

The black gun image shows the brutality of the conflict and the black eye painting conveys people´s pain. In addition it stresses that they are being watched by the government (Bashar al-Assad).

The black colour on the white fabric reminds on World War I and II because of the photos and films which were made during that time.It furthermore underlines that history repeats itself.

 

  

I ripped the fabric apart to create a destroyed looking outfit and to underline the poverty. It also should symbolize that people in Syria cannot hide anywhere and therefore they are not safe.

After that I wrapped the cape around a model so that no arms would be shown and added some green wire to it. The cape without arm holes conveys the feeling of beeing trapped in Syria and the war.
The colour green reminds on hope and points to the photography “A lens on Syria – CNN” by Sergey Ponomarev. This photography shows a coloured taxi and especially a little boy with a hat in front of grey ruins. In my opinion conveys the boy love and hope.

I also put some plastic bags on the cape to stress the famine of Syria's people.

In the end I took pictures at different locations. I chose a model which looks like a Syrian guy so that he would present the Syrian population.

The first location I thought of taking a picture was in a Park. This location would show the contrast between the destroyed country and a “happy looking world”. After taking the picture I thought that the atmosphere in the nature would be too happy and would not transmit my message in the right way.

Another place to take pictures was behind grid which reminds on bars and Syria´s imprisonment people. In addition I took pictures in front of grid.
I liked the idea of it but I also think that the grid would hide my project too much.

I also took pictures in front of the lockers which are the synonym of people being locked away. The problem was that the idea was to compex to understand and the locker wall was not high enough.
 

My favourite pictures are the ones in the lift. The ones in front of the mirror and the ones where the door closes and the person will be locked away. The lift gives the feeling of a small metallic room where nobody can escape like the people who are imprisonment in Syria.
The mirror underlines the faith of those people and their despair.

 

The experience of creating an object that reflects my point of view developed me further as an artist. It was a tough project because we had a short amount of time. Therefore I learned how to manage my time.

In addition I tried to come up with something that I have not done before like the cape that I designed.

Furthermore it showed me to do some research before starting with the project because ideas come as you get inspired by other people. It is also important to experiment with different thoughts otherwise you are not going develope.