Hanging Poems

Hanging Poems are seven famous poems in the Arab culture; they represent the most robust poetry in the Arabic language from the pre-Islamic era. I wanted to focus on the relationship we have as a region with our history of how it continues to exist through time and space in different forms. I engraved a part of these pre-Islamic poems on the two stone pillars using the ancient Sabaean Yemenite letter form, one of the combinations of the ‘Semitic’ languages that make up the modern Arabic language of today. These stones support the form in the middle, made of two metal sheets hanged by a thin metal bar forming a dual synthesis harmonizing the old and the new.

-Stone, Metal - 2019 - 23.6”*22.8”*4”