FADI AL-HAMWI
Glass Fountain / نافورة الزجاج
Performance installation
Reuterplatz fountain, Berlin, Germany, 2022
Glass Fountain is a site-specific performance installation in the fountain of Retuerplatz, Berlin. The performance is an attempt to reactivate the fountain that has not been filled with water for more than 10 years.
During the performance Al-Hamwi is breaking 2 tons of security glass, spreading the shards on a platform inside the fountain, which makes the glass on the surface shaking and trembling by vibration motors attached beneath the platform.
Video: https://vimeo.com/749938720
Video: https://vimeo.com/758890699
Human Mistake II / خطأ بشري ٢
Performance installation
Europäische Kunstakademie Kunsthalle, Trier, Germany, 2022
I will make this mistake again.
I will never make this mistake again.
Human Mistake is a performance-based installation project centred around three main objects/materials: Glass, metal, and vibration motors. The work studies and explores the possibilities that cause a human mistake, both consciously and sub- consciously, accidentally or intentionally, as well as the actions or reactions that surround it. It is an investigation to translate and embody the chances of repairing what has been broken by accepting and honouring the damages.
Central to this work is the concept of duality. Dualities influence all aspects of the work from the way that he interprets space to the actions he performs and the sculptural objects that he created for the site-specific installation. Hues of light change from warm to cold, materials rub up against one another; hard and soft, and delicate glass meets the stable mass of hard metal. Electricity flows along red and blue cables carrying positive and negative currents, enabling the whiz- zing burring, scratching, scraping and bristling of the self-made machines to present a chorus of anticipation. For the Kunsthalle Trier the artist has adapted his vision and worked with the venue’s specific textural structures.
Even as the unexpected noises caused by self-designed and developed contraptions and machines permeate through each of the different rooms, Al-Ham- wi intervenes in the space, physically transporting glass panels and objects that on the one hand represent rudimentary materials that we are all familiar with but also figure into the duality of danger and security. What does the idea of safety glass mean, and is glass that is broken always a mistake? The- se and other questions of security, intentionality, transparency, and memory are being vigorously processed in real-time by both the machines and the artist himself.
Video: https://vimeo.com/750126151
Human Mistake / خطأ بشري
Performance installation
GlougauAIR, Berlin, Germany, 2022
Human Mistake is a performance installation project based on three main objects/materials: Glass, metal and vibration motors. The work studies and explores the possibilities that cause a human mistake, both consciously and subconsciously, accidentally or intentionally, as well as the actions or reactions that surround it. It is an investigation to translate and embody the chances of repairing what has been broken by accepting and honouring the damages.
Sugar Forever \ سُكَّر للأبدْ
Performance installation, Berlin, Germany, 2020
Third showcase of the project.
Link to video: https://vimeo.com/590535633
Goldfall \ شلال الذهب
(Sugar, metal, external vibrator and motion sensor)
Interactive sound installation, Berlin, 2020
Link to video: https://vimeo.com/566843306
Sugar Forever \ سُكَّر للأبدْ
Performance installation, Turnhout, Belgium, 2019
second showcase of the project.
SUGAR FOREVER \ سُكَّر للأبدْ
Performance installation, Berlin, 2019
Sugar Forever is a performance installation-based art project. It is a re-creation, in sugar instead of cement, of the concrete bricks produced in Syria. The bricks are manufactured in the same dimensions and following the same manual procedure.
The production of the sugar bricks carries several meanings, ranging from the war in Syria to European migration. The manufacturing process reflects the psychological, moral and material reconstruction faced by many Syrians in their country of asylum. ‘White Gold’ relates to the organic formation of the human body, so often exploited by a capitalist system and its industrial states.
In the same way a grain of sugar is consumed by the human body, so the human body is subsumed within the political structure of asylum- countries: the strange human mass becomes the fuel of the cultural and economic engine. The sugar used in the construction of the artwork comprises aesthetic contradictions. Although solid in form, there is a sweetness to its organic solubility.
Bricks, a foundation of modern architecture and civil life, are so easily destroyed, like sugar itself. The continually morphing work mimics sugar’s ability to destroy the human body and our predisposition to self-poison.
In its structure, the entire process reflects the contradictions of displaced and torn people, Forced into a mould, those trying to rebuild their lives are compelled to integrate. They are asked to behave like polished sugar cubes, to become part of the European construction, based on ethnic homogeneity. But this sweetness carries a bitter poison. Deep in the roots of the plant itself, sugar has changed the course of human history: impacting on the formation of colonies, the maintenance of slavery, world migration, global trade wars, and the ethnic and political striation of the New World.
Sugar Forever is an ongoing project, with different structures surrounding its concept and showcase.
29.7 x 21 cm, (photograph) , 2016
Unknown
29.7 x 21 cm, (photograph) 2016
Skin mirrors / مرايا الجلد
80 x 160 cm (2 pieces) cowhide, Video, sound
Surgeons Lavatory room, Turin, Italy. 2018
as a set of barred teeth and the phrase, written in Arabic, The teeth in the mirror are closer than they appear in reality,
are etched into cow hide and adorned with a geometric border.
To whom it may concern
(200 destroyed bricks, live streaming of the room on a TV
by a hidden camera)
Beirut, Lebanon. 2013
A reconstruction of destruction in an alternative space far from war. a live broadcast on television compels the viewer to enter a realm of dual perception of time and space.
The environment of which it is presented is an approach to a fine line of illusion between an act of war and a place of safety.
A soul looks at you, watching..
A body, lost in the void, stumbles to find a ground to stand upon..
Ruins of homes, impregnated memories, voices and scents of people..
Standing remote within yourself, until it becomes your own tragedy.
إلى من يهمه الأمر
(٢٠٠ قطعة طوب من الباطون، تلفاز، كاميرة فيديو)
بيروت ، ٢٠١٣
إعادة هيكلة وتصميم الدمار في مكان بديل بعيد عن الحرب,
يشبه فعل الحرب نفسه ولكن بطريقة أخرى..
التلفاز المرمي وسط هذا الدمار الاصطناعي هو المحرض لدخول الفضاء
الذي يمثل الازدواجية بين الزمان والمكان..
البيئة التي يقدم فيها العمل هي مقاربة للخط الوهمي
بين فعل ونتائج الحرب والمكان الآمن الذي يقدم فيه العمل.
رُوحٌ تنظرُ اليكَ مُراقبة..
وجسدٌ تائهٌ في الفراغ, يبحثُ متعثراً عن مكانٍ ثابتٍ لوضع قدميه..
حُطام بيت تعشقت فيه ذكريات وأصوات ورائحة أهله..
تقف نائياً بنفسك, حتى تُصبحَ فاجعتك.
4:00 am
(6 square meter real grass, wood bed,19 bricks, pillow)
Damascus, Syria. All art now space 2012
The space was a 6 square meter room with black walls and ceilings, while the floor was paved with natural green grass. At the far corner, my (actual) bed was placed and instead of a mattress there were 12 cement bricks and my pillow on top.
This room represented the intersection of my dreams and the tough reality of a young man living in Damascus facing the winds of change.
This is my bed, this is where I sleep in my Damascus,
Here I die everyday and wake to be reborn.
الرابعة صباحاً
( ٥،٥ م٢ عشب، سرير خشبي، ١٩ بلوكة، وسادة )
دمشق ، ٢٠١٢
الغرفة هي تقاطعات أحلامي أثناء النوم وأحلام الواقع التي عشتها في دمشق.
هذا هو سريري الذي أنام عليه في دمشق، مدينتي التي ولدت فيها,
هنا أموت كل يوم وأستيقظ لأُخلق من جديد.
خلال شهر العرض طال العشب الأخضر الذي اعتنيت به لينمو داخل الغرفة السوداء ومن ثم أخذ يصفر لونه حتى أصبح ذهبياً.
Installation, over my bed. Damascus - Syria. 2012
Over My Bed
(222 plastic soldiers, bed , pillow)
Damascus, Syria. My Studio. 2012
An army of recurring visits to the market across the street, buying those little toys of soldiers, bombings every night, sleepless nights and insomnia. Pile over pile over time, removing them from their plastic bags, I lay them on my bed, carefully placing them one by one, thinking of those recurring thoughts, replacing my body with those thoughts, helplessly playing with my toys.
فوق سريري
( ٢٢٢ جندي بلاستيكي، سرير، وسادة)
دمشق ، ٢٠١٢
جيش من الزيارات إلى سوق الألعاب القريب من مرسمي في دمشق,
اشتري في كل مرة كيس من الجنود البلاستيكية,
أصوات انفجارات تبدأ مساء كل ليلة, أخرج مجموعة من الجنود من كيسها البلاستيكي وأضعها على سريري بتناسق وعناية واحداً تلو الآخر,
لتحل مكان جسدي العاجز على السرير.
Video installation, All art now space. Damascus - Syria. 2011
Video installation. All art now space. Damascus - Syria. 2011
Video installation. All art now space. Damascus - Syria. 2011
Reproductive Power
(222 toys chicks, looped video )
Damascus, Syria. All art now space. 2012
Hatching system of chicks, producing human machines.
Placing workers in production lines,
picking, boxing and selling, raw materials, oil machines.
Morphing of humans into packaging machines;
Packaging those people into boxes,
packing the chicks into packages.
Entering a loop of reproduction,exhausting of human.
Instigator of the system,
Is the muscle power of those machines,
that the system abuses for its own muse.
السلطة الإنجابية
(٢٢٢ صوص بلاستيكي، فيديو )
دمشق ، ٢٠١٢
نظام تفريخ الصيصان الاصطناعية لانتاج الإنسان الآلة.
وضع العمال في خطوط الانتاج،
اختيار المنتوجات وتعليبها وبيعها,
المواد الخام وآلات النفط.
تحويل البشر الى آلات التعبئة والتغليف، تعبئة الناس في صناديق.
لتعبئة الصيصان الاصطناعية في صناديق، حلقة من الاستنساخ واستنذاف البشر.
المحرض للنظام هي القوة العضلية لهذه الآلات،
هذه هي انتهاكات النظام لخدمة مصالحه البشرية.
لهاية
( الوان اكريليك، ١٠٠ خيط نايلون شفاف )
دمشق ، ٢٠١١
ذكريات الطفولة مشوهة في طبيعتها بطريقة استحضارنا لها.
بينما نحاول أن نتذكر تلك الحالات، نصبح غافلين عن تكوينها الأصلي وما أصبحت عليه الآن بالنسبة لنا.
Installation. All art now space. Damascus,Syria. 2011
Installation. All art now space. Damascus,Syria. 2011
Installation. All art now space. Damascus,Syria. 2011
Pacifier
(Acrylic colors, 100 transparent strings)
Damascus, Syria. All art now. 2011
Childhood memories are distorted in their nature.
While trying to remember those instances, we become oblivious to their original formation and what they have become.
National Museum of Damascus. 2010
Prophets \ الأنبياء
(150x120cm wood board, stencil spray paint, 20x20 plastic box, water, Sapling)
Damascus, Syria. National Museum of Damascus. 2010
page (340) of the Qur’an is stenciled on wood-board. All of the content is erased except one “Aya 30” (line) is left to be read: “And We made every living thing of water” It was placed in a clear Plexiglas filled with water, and a small opening in the bottom dripping a drop every second to the small plant that lived underneath.
الصفحة رقم (340) في القرآن من سورة الأنبياء, طبعت على لوح خشبي أبيض, وتم حذف جميع الكلمات الموجودة في الصفحة, ما عدا الآية رقم (30). وَجَعَلْنَا مِنَ الْمَاء كُلَّ شَيْءٍ حَيٍّ.
ثبت فوقها صندوق من البلاستيك الشفاف المملؤء بالماء وبقاعدته ثقب صغير, يقطر نقطة من الماء كل ثانية في النبتة الموجودة أسفل لوح الخشب.
2012
Losing Energy \ فقدان الطاقة