Art imitates life and death in war-ravaged Afrin
Two Syrian artists, a sculptor and a photographer, agree that the tragedies of war have given them rich fodder for art and opportunities to speak out for life and human dignity.
Kobani native Nashaat Ammi came back to his hometown after 13 years in the spring of 2015. It was just a few months after its liberation on Jan. 26, 2015 and the city was a dump of destroyed vehicles and rocket shells. To the 34-year-old artist who had worked for years in Lebanon making metal decorations, the metal bits in the rubble were waiting to become works of art.
Ammi was born in the eastern Kobani village of Sharran. He dropped out of school when he was in the ninth grade and traveled to Damascus in 2002 to become a blacksmith before moving on to Lebanon. In his first weeks back in Kobani, he walked down the streets of the destroyed city, picking up the remnants of the weapons the Islamic State used in 2014.
“When I hold a damaged rocket in my hands, I forget it is the product of war and destruction. Its message of death becomes a message of peace,” Ammi said as he showed Al-Monitor around his small workshop in Kobani.
He melted and molded the weapons and parts of destroyed cars, sculpting them into figures of immigrants leaving with their luggage. He made a musician playing his violin with a nostalgic expression and the animals and birds who had also fled the area during the fighting. One piece, called “Shout,” is shaped like the cannons that IS militants used to launch missiles on Kobani.
