Syrian Migration #23, 2016
Helen Zughaibexpand_more
Gouache on cardboardexpand_more
Gift of Maymanah Farhat and Athir Shayotaexpand_more 2020.68
Not on Viewexpand_more
Arab-American artist Helen Zughaib produced this gouache of an Islamic funeral ritual as part of a narrative series called the “Syrian Migration,” a cycle of 23 works on paper or board that addresses the experiences of violence, death, and displacement during the Syrian Civil War (2011-present). The series was inspired by the narrative paintings of Jacob Lawrence’s
“Migration” series of 1940-41, which chronicled the movement of some one million African Americans from the rural Southern United States to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West between 1916 and 1930. Zughaib’s series begins with the nascent uprisings of the Arab Spring (2010-12) and their violent suppression, and closes with the atrocities of the Syrian Civil War and the subsequent displacement of millions of Syrians and others. Many of the works, including this example, draw visual and conceptual analogies between the subjects of Lawrence’s paintings and the struggles of the Syrian people. Here, three female mourners in black burqas carry a simple wooden coffin adorned with flowers as part of a traditional funeral procession, a powerful signifier of life and tragic death during war.
Details
- Title
- Syrian Migration #23
- Artist Life
- American (born Lebanon) 1959
- Role
- Artist
- Accession Number
- 2020.68
- Provenance
- The artist, Washington, D.C.; Maymanah Farhat, New York: given to MIA, 2020.
- Curator Approved
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