EVEN A MOUNTAIN
"If my heart was a mountain, it would be broken, because even a mountain cannot bear this much pain." Hala Safel. In 2014, ISIS launched a genocidal campaign against the Yazidi community in Sinjar in northern Iraq, slaughtering more than 3,000 men and enslaving over 6,000 women and children. But the Yazidi genocide is not in the past. The trauma is deeply intergenerational and ongoing. For many Yazidi women, it's been only a year, a handful of months, perhaps just one day, since they were rescued. For too many, that moment still hasn't come. Thousands of Yazidi women and girls are still missing in captivity today. When they do return, they have nowhere to go. Much of the community lives in IDP camps, unable to return home due to the security situation in Sinjar. This ongoing project began in collaboration with young Yazidi women and survivors, aiming to explore and illustrate the feelings of pain, horror, healing, and community amidst an ongoing trauma.
Ongoing series [2019-Present] | Commissioned and exhibited by FGO
