Just A Concert

“I did not paint the perilous seas, nor the streets of homelessness, associated with refugees”, explains Sinan Hussein.

This painting is of a party with refugee guests. Each guest brings his or her social mask in hand, ready to wear. These party guests seem to come from the streets, where they dwell. The streets have marked their existence, in a way where characters carry the traits of the street. The man on the cone is damaged. Instead of being on the street, he is on a cone that represents the street of a homeless man.

“When I applied for asylum at the United Nations, I thought they would send me to Sweden or something. I was shocked that they selected America for me", explains Hussein. Hussein did not want to move to America. He wanted to stay near the family he loves so dearly in his city, Baghdad, but he had no choice but to leave, due to the threats engendered by conflict.

(Above text taken from an essay in the Mitli Mitlak (Like You, Like Me) exhibition catalogue, which provides an overview of contemporary Arab world art and current regional and global trends of thought. The text also illustrates the interrelations between the painting and Biba Sheikh’s literary text on which the artwork is based.)