If You Leave Under Fire, What Would You Take with You?
Amputated from their former lives, refugees found themselves—borrowing from Albert Camus—diverted from their selfness. They left the territories of their ancestors, hoping to find safety in new and unknown destinations. On these arduous journeys, they clung to material objects carried all the way from home.
These foundational objects acquired a practical and conceptual significance larger than life. They promoted survival and livelihood. They defied loss to preserve the refugee’s identity and humanity. Remnants of a former reality, these objects created vital connections between past and future in an elusive present.
Reflecting on If You Leave Under Fire, What Would You Take with You?, artist Yasmine Dabbous's poignant exhibition at Hillyer Gallery in Washington, DC, invites us to consider our deep connections to identity and belongings in times of crisis. Through fibre arts and jewellery design, Dabbous honoured the essential items carried by refugees, transforming them into hand-embroidered miniature mattresses symbolising stability and resilience. Each mattress represented not only the physical objects brought by refugees from twelve countries across four continents but also a steadfast anchor for lives uprooted and on the move.
Beneath this celebration, where home becomes a portable object, lies a powerful commentary on the collapse of humanity. Despite massive advances in cybernetics and genetics, civilisation faces a moral defeat when it fails to avert conflict, multiple refugee crises, and millions of lives shattered.
Yasmine's eclectic textile jewellery could almost be mistaken for precious antique pieces. Made by hand using a combination of different textile techniques to weave, crochet, wrap and plait threads, fibres and fabric, Yasmine creates jewellery that is bold yet delicate and intimately intertwined with colour and texture.
Yasmine is a visual culture artist and researcher from Beirut, Lebanon. She is the founder of Kinship Stories, a line of tribal art necklaces revolving around values, stories and craftsmanship. Yasmine is also one of the two women behind Espace Fann, a Beirut-based creative. Through her work, Yasmine fuses interdisciplinary methodologies and mediums to create pieces combining travel, storytelling, collage, and fibre art.
Find our more and follow Yasmine Dabbous:
@yasminedabbous
These foundational objects acquired a practical and conceptual significance larger than life. They promoted survival and livelihood. They defied loss to preserve the refugee’s identity and humanity. Remnants of a former reality, these objects created vital connections between past and future in an elusive present.
Reflecting on If You Leave Under Fire, What Would You Take with You?, artist Yasmine Dabbous's poignant exhibition at Hillyer Gallery in Washington, DC, invites us to consider our deep connections to identity and belongings in times of crisis. Through fibre arts and jewellery design, Dabbous honoured the essential items carried by refugees, transforming them into hand-embroidered miniature mattresses symbolising stability and resilience. Each mattress represented not only the physical objects brought by refugees from twelve countries across four continents but also a steadfast anchor for lives uprooted and on the move.
Beneath this celebration, where home becomes a portable object, lies a powerful commentary on the collapse of humanity. Despite massive advances in cybernetics and genetics, civilisation faces a moral defeat when it fails to avert conflict, multiple refugee crises, and millions of lives shattered.
Yasmine's eclectic textile jewellery could almost be mistaken for precious antique pieces. Made by hand using a combination of different textile techniques to weave, crochet, wrap and plait threads, fibres and fabric, Yasmine creates jewellery that is bold yet delicate and intimately intertwined with colour and texture.
Yasmine is a visual culture artist and researcher from Beirut, Lebanon. She is the founder of Kinship Stories, a line of tribal art necklaces revolving around values, stories and craftsmanship. Yasmine is also one of the two women behind Espace Fann, a Beirut-based creative. Through her work, Yasmine fuses interdisciplinary methodologies and mediums to create pieces combining travel, storytelling, collage, and fibre art.
Find our more and follow Yasmine Dabbous:
@yasminedabbous