Evacuation diaries 4
1999 - Present
Description
A woman stands centred in the picture, shown from the torso up, turned slightly toward the viewer and meeting the gaze directly. Her expression is composed and unsmiling. She wears a light head covering and a dark coat carrying a white bird emblem at the chest.
Her lower torso is architecture. The body gives way to a multi-storey facade, regularly spaced windows and vertical panelling continuous with her form, so that figure and building are one structure.
Behind her stand ruined industrial buildings, their windows broken, frameworks damaged, metal twisted. The sky is overcast and textured, the ground barren and cratered. The whole picture is greyscale but for two red poppies entering from the left.
She is built of the same fabric as the wreckage behind her, and unlike it she is intact and looking out. The poppies are the only living thing in the frame. Signed lower left in white script.
Artist Notes
“Evacuation Diaries” is a deeply personal art project I created during the forced displacement we endured. Each piece was drawn amidst the chaos of evacuation — under bombardment, in overcrowded shelters, on the move, and in moments of unbearable fear and uncertainty. Through these drawings, I document not just the physical journey of being uprooted, but also the emotional landscape of loss, resilience, and survival. This project is a visual diary that bears witness to our suffering, preserving the fragments of what we lived through — our destroyed homes, the faces of loved ones, the silent screams. I drew to cope, to resist erasure, and to speak when words failed. Evacuation Diaries is both a memory and a message: this is what it means to be displaced. This is what we carry with us.
Preservation Notes
PROVISIONAL. Assessment from visual inspection of a digital image only. No physical examination. Data gaps are expected on this collection and will be completed as information reaches the archive. RECURRING DEVICE The body opening into architecture links this work to Plestia and to the file named last ashes, both of which show a torso giving way to a built landscape. This is a sustained device across the collection rather than a one-off. Note that this work is signed at the LOWER LEFT, while Plestia and last ashes are signed lower right. So the device crosses the signature-placement division recorded on those records. That weakens any simple reading of the two groups as two different hands, and is worth noting alongside the open attribution flag on Plestia. SUBJECT NOTE The ruined industrial buildings and cratered ground are rendered specifically rather than generically. Whether they depict an identifiable place should be recorded from the artist and not inferred. The white bird emblem at the chest may also be significant and should be asked about rather than described as decorative. MATERIAL ASSESSMENT Unresolved. Automated inspection suggested a digital composite combining drawing with photographic or three-dimensional elements. Recorded as unconfirmed. If the work does incorporate photographic source material, that would be worth knowing for both preservation and rights purposes. SELECTIVE COLOUR The two red poppies are the only colour in an otherwise greyscale image. Deliberate, and must be preserved in reproduction. SIGNATURE Present lower left in white cursive. Not transcribed. Automated reading returned Neima Al Qassem, which is wrong. The typeset name on the Heaven series title plate reads Noura Al Qasasia. SOURCE FILE Noura11.JPG, 3210 x 4160 px, aspect ratio only. Physical dimensions unknown.
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