Lonely Planet (2016 – 2018)

The image of Syria, in the minds of us outsiders, has transformed from being “one of the most peaceful exotic travel destinations” to “one of the most dangerous places on the planet” in only a few years’ time. People at the sites of conflict, however, experience things differently, and not always in black and white. Daily life continues to some extent in the midst of the destructive effects of war. Lonely Planet is an attempt to understand and capture this in-between reality in Syria by editing the pages of a travel guide through first-person interviews with individuals who recently fled from the country. The work is not meant as exhaustive documentation of one reality from one coherent point of view, but as an overlay of multiple realities as perceived by different people with different opinions and presented by the various media sources that they have been relying on.

Edit 2016 was created in May 2016 with the help of Ahmad, Raeda, Tamara, and Mohammed, for when home won’t let you stay, an exhibition curated by Işın Önol.

Edit 2018 was created in May 2018 with the help of Marwa and Rifaae, for Archipelago: Island of Unpredictable Thinking at Wiener Festwochen, an exhibition curated by Anton Lederer, Birgit Lurz, Margarethe Makovec, and Wolfgang Schlag.