Mohamed Hafez On How Multiple Identities Inform His Art

The sculptor on displacement, memory, and why education is his second studio.


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Mohamed Hafez On How Multiple Identities Inform His Art

Mohamed Hafez builds miniature worlds inside suitcases — streetscapes of Damascus rendered in architectural salvage and paint. Each piece is a memory he can close and carry.

On Identity

“I am Syrian. I am American. I am an architect. I am a refugee. When people ask me which one I am, I say: all of them, at the same time, and none of them completely. The work comes from that space in between.”

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