Conserving Lab

Installation

2023

 

Poet's journey. Body and soul connection. Ink from tea, onion peels. Wooden stick, not pen. Prison to prison. Spread poems, outside walls. Committed to memory. Recited, recorded. Communicating through Morse code. Impact of writing utensils. Censorship's influence. Onion skins, cigarette papers. Scattered information. Memoirs, novels, articles. Prison system, not means to an end. Self-fulfilling structure, industry. Reliance, vested interests. Unpacking Syrian prison system. Secrecy, censorship, terror. Lack of systematic examination. Memoirs, social media, interviews. Prison literature. What defines it? Investigating violations, abuses. Novels, memoirs, poetry. Hidden prisons, interrogations. Undocumented detention, killing. Beyond official aspects. Silenced, unrecorded detention. Political murder. Greater jail. No longer an exception. Lifelong imprisonment. Eternity, extermination. International dimension. Syrian genocide. Emerging Islamophobia. State of exception. Violence, citizen, nomos. Biopolitics, power. Invisible killing. Coercive apparatus. Army, police. Military intelligence, air force. Political security, state security. Armored brigade, Republican guard. Special forces, Shabbiha. Branch prisons: Qamishli, Aleppo, Idlib, Deir ez-Zor, Latakia, Tartous, Homs, Hama, Damascus, Daraa, Suwayda. Military prisons: Tadmor Palmyra, Saydnaya, Mezze. Civil prisons: Aleppo central, Damascus central + women, Citadel, Sheikh Hassan, Qatana. Secret prisons: Deir Shmeil, Al-Tahoune, Regiment 555. Salt rooms. Story, narrative, powerful. Language, political. Writing, political. What is political? Writing as resistance. Writing on onion skins, cigarette papers. Expression despite oppression.

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