Khaled Dawa is an artist refined by suffering
A Syrian sculptor struggles to remember his people's "sacrifice"
Khaled Dawa works on a clay sculpture that simulates the scenes of destruction inflicted on buildings in several Syrian cities.
AFP
The reality of the war negatively affected the psyche of the Syrian artist, who lost his dearest possessions.
AFP
Khaled Dawa seeks to establish the massacres in the collective memory of the Syrians.
AFP
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A residential neighborhood that has been flattened by the Syrian regime’s raids, and its residents have transformed bodies buried under the rubble of demolished buildings next to children’s toys. A scene that was repeated many times during the Syrian war, embodied in a huge artwork whose owner Khaled Dawa, who resides in France, aims to keep the Syrians’ “sacrifices” alive in the minds. .
In this work titled “Here is my heart!”, as in all the other works he has accomplished since he fled to France, the 36-year-old Syrian artist continues his struggle against injustice, trying relentlessly to urge “not to forget the revolution and the sacrifices of the Syrian people.”
"When I work on this piece in my studio, I feel like I'm in Damascus," the artist, who was detained in his country for a while, told AFP.
I do everything I can here, away from there.”
The bitter memories of prison still haunt the Syrian artist, who left an indelible mark on his life, who left brutal repression and the absence of his friends who were killed, missing, or languishing in prisons.
Between revolution and memory, through his new work, Dhawa aims to denounce “the inaction of the international community in the face of dictatorial regimes” in Syria and elsewhere.
"In the face of the catastrophe taking place in Syria, I feel responsible because I have the tools to express myself," he says.
After exhibitions in France and Europe, his work in recent months has seen strong momentum in large facilities.
The facility “Here is my heart!”
in the International City of Arts in Paris, soon to be entrusted to a major French national museum.
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Khaled Dawa started this unique and huge work in 2018, when his heart bled to witness the tragedy of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus, one of the areas that joined early in the popular uprising against the regime after the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011, and witnessed a tragic siege and widespread destruction as a result of intense raids and chemical attacks. .
In “Here is my heart!” Destruction seems to be the scene. In the work, about six meters long and more than two meters high, made of polystyrene and brittle materials (soil, glue and wood) covered with mud, the sculptor reconstructs the interior and exterior structures of buildings with broken doors and destroyed balconies where Upturned chairs can even be seen.
But under the rubble, traces of human presence, burning bikes, and an overturned bus.
The body of a child can be seen next to a playing ball, and the body of an elderly woman.
Through this work, the Syrian artist tries to convey with him the recipient to witness the horror of the scene of death and destruction.
Philosopher Guillaume de Vaux, a member of the French Institute for the Near East and one of the authors of the book "Destruction in Actions, an Essay on Contemporary Syrian Art", considers the work "completely unique and innovative".
“Other artists have shown destroyed things and made their art out of them,” he says, but Dawa “shows the path of destruction from within.”
He adds, "He stops before the figure disappears completely, but the spectator will inevitably be led to imagine the moment when everything collapses... as when he presses statues of prisoners, to express the suppression of detention, and beyond that the horizon of their disappearance."
broken memories
Khaled Dawa, a graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus, works on topics that bring “people and power” face to face.
Since the start of the anti-regime protests in 2011, Dawa has participated in demonstrations before embarking on a joint adventure with artists and activists within the framework of an independent cultural center launched by actor Fares Al-Helou in Damascus called Al-Bustan.
Despite the security pressures, Khaled continued for three years to participate in demonstrations and work in this place.
He found himself almost alone during 2013. "My battle was not to give up on the project, lest it be tantamount to giving up hope," he says.
It was during this period that Doua realized the impact his sculptures could have.
On his Facebook page, he posted a picture of his work that "has achieved a great spread everywhere" with "hundreds of posts".
Despite the danger, Dawa continued his creative work and continued to post pictures before destroying his sculptures “so as not to leave any traces.”
He was seriously injured one morning in May 2013 inside his studio as a result of bullet fragments fired by a regime helicopter, and he was imprisoned upon leaving the hospital.
For two months, he endured terror in various prisons as he witnessed the suffering of other detainees who were victims of torture.
"It was a difficult period, it was during the summer," Dawa explains.
There were thousands of people, and every day at least 10 people died,” pointing out that “their bodies were kept with us for two days without anyone taking them out of the cell. It was a deliberate thing.”
These memories still haunt his nightmares.
"They smashed the memories in my head," he says.
After his release, he was forcibly enlisted in the army, but he managed to flee his country to Lebanon in September 2013, and went into exile the following year in France, where he was granted refugee status.
All that no longer exists
Dawa says that through his work he wanted to “here is my heart!”
To narrate “everything that no longer exists… families, memories” and all that left him “scars in the heart.”
Veronique Pierre de Mandiargue, co-founder of the Association Open Doors to Art, which accompanies exiled artists, says that Daoua "has been working every evening for about four years."
She added, "Khaled wanted to achieve a stable picture of what is happening in Syria, to keep it in our memory."
A few days after seeing the work in the Syrian artist's atelier, the 54-year-old Syrian psychoanalyst, Rana al-Sayyah, who has taken refuge in France, is deeply moved by what she saw.
"It's very real," she says. "I couldn't look at all the details inside the buildings, it was very difficult."
But she continues, “Khaled, through this piece, expresses the aches and pains that we cannot talk about;
He reconstructed our story.”
The Syrian conflict has killed nearly 500,000 people and driven another 6.6 million into exile.
In Daoua’s workshop in Vanves, in the Paris suburbs, a series of bronze sculptures titled “Maghouat” can be seen, representing the corpse of a man with a crumpled body stuck between four walls with a countdown of days behind him, resembling a prisoner’s wall, embodied in a clay relief.
Another work of the Syrian artist will also be displayed until February in the public space in Paris, which is a giant sculpture entitled “Rise up” made especially of wood and plaster, and it shows a huge body whose legs, hands and face are filled with holes.
"While sculptors of public statues perpetuate the power of great men, Khaled Dawa instead displays the power of decadence with which he owes" the dictator himself.
To put the final touches on this statue, Khaled Dawaa worked among passers-by on the street.
He says with a bright smile, "People have expressed their encouragement to me, and they tell me, 'I am not alone'."
• The bitter memories of prison still live in the Syrian artist, whose life repression left an indelible mark.
• As in all the other works he has accomplished since he fled to France, the 36-year-old Syrian artist Khaled Dawa continues his struggle against injustice, trying relentlessly to urge “not to forget the revolution and the sacrifices of the Syrian people.”
• Since the start of the anti-regime protests in 2011, Dawa has participated in demonstrations before embarking on a joint adventure with artists and activists within the framework of an independent cultural center launched by actor Fares Al-Helou in Damascus called Al-Bustan.
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