The Start Project: The Forgotten War

The final piece that I have produced has been influenced by architectural models, and Layal Abdullah, of whose artwork I have been asked to reinterpret and respond. The final piece of The Start Project I have created is The Forgotten War. This is a small architectural model of the city Sana’a that has been destroyed during the Yemeni civil war. On each of the buildings is a symbol of beauty such as the classical stained glass windows, flowers that Abdullah has depicted throughout her artwork, and sacred Arabic text. This has been coupled with an audio clip, displayed on headphones, speaking of the beauty, and the destruction, that is currently in Yemen and the people.
I decided to copy the street layout of a part of Sana’a, trying to keep the buildings and road sizes to a certain ratio in order to gain the authenticity of Yemen. [Screenshots from Google Maps].
Google Earth YemenYemen FullYemen Zoomed

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My own copy of the above city plan from Google Maps, Sana’a, Yemen.

The three aspects from Abdullah’s work that I wanted to bring into this project was the Arabic text, traditional Yemeni architecture and Yemen stained glass windows. To gain the vision of beautiful chaos, I decided to keep the individual designs large by using the whole piece of A3 paper.
The Arabic text was that of religious text, found on a ‘learn Arabic’ site. These have been placed together consecutively in order to fill the area. The text has been designed with black, blue, green and red, which are traditional for Arabic text.
The three designs of the stained glass windows have been copied from windows in Yemen, including the colour and design.
These pieces were then transformed into buildings and rubble, in the aim to attempt the beautiful chaos that is the Yemen culture and the war that is tearing it apart.

This architectural piece was accompanied by the sounds of Yemen in a three minute audio clip, presented with headphones, to make a more immersive experience for the viewer.. This audio clip was an accumulation of Yemen interviews with Mohammed, Yemen expert Natasha Ezrow and Saleh, news clips by the BBC, and music from Yemen.

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