A month after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian community in France faces the question of return. This question is at the heart of the exhibition Here in the distance at 011 Café in Paris. The artist, Nadia Albukai, 22, is inspired by aerial views of Syria to maintain a link with her native country.
In a very small room, with white walls and a shelf which holds a few books in Arabic, the solidarity café 011, like the year of the start of the Arab Spring, exhibits artists from the Middle East. Until January 19, Syrian Nadia Albukai, a refugee in France, is exhibiting her works there.
Nadia Albukai engraves on copper the landscapes of her childhood seen from the sky. “ Engraving allows you to create several degrees of gray that I do either by hand by digging hard, or with iron perchloride, explains the artist. It allows me to make different textures, to create relief. »
Intellectualizing his exile
This visual arts student at the Parisian University of the Sorbonne left the Syria at the age of 13, in 2015. Art allows him to maintain a link with his country of origin. “ I specialize in the province of Damascus, in Western Ghouta, there were a lot of bombings and it was besieged for a very, very long time, she reminds. This is inaccessible territory and I could only travel there through the aerial views that were available on Google Earth. Having left Syria very young — the revolution started when I was nine years old — I did not have time to travel much in Syria. I didn’t know much about my country. »
Through her art, Nadia Albukai explores her exile: “ I think it created a pretty strong bond because I got to know the territory a little better than I had in my childhood memories. It all started from my experience, from my experience in exile and the fact that I could not go to Syria because of political reasons. But there you have it, it allowed me to intellectualize my exile. »
Due to her refugee status, the impossibility of returning to Syria
Today, a month after the fall of the regime Bashar al-Assadhis outlook has changed. “ I thought I would never be able to return to Syria again, she confides. This is a very big change, truly historic. It’s still very new. People really need to heal from all these years of oppression. »
And if she hopes to return to Syria soon, she explains that her life is now in France. “ I want more and more to go back there to visit, but I have my whole life in France still, I couldn’t settle in Syria now. But I still can’t [aller en Syrie] because I have refugee status and no measures have yet been taken regarding that, regrets the artist. Many Syrians are afraid of returning to Syria and of no longer being able to return to France because of their residence permit. »
To have more peace of mind, Nadia Albukai hopes to obtain French nationality.
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