Mohammed Alhaj

 It was through the stark reality of the challenges the Arab region is going through, especially in Palestine, and with the successive political tensions, that the idea of “Intiqal” was born to serve as evidence for the impact mass displacement has had on a population in search of stability of life in a safe and neutral environment. It also serves as a study of the perceived body language of those displaced in foreign lands, as well as the individual and group human psychologies that can be seen in the process of transit and as a response to mass displacement.

With the artistic concept of radiative formations in mind, “Intiqal” was inspired by the vista of human masses segmented into groups and individuals, which would explain how the concept came to be an expressive philosophy, in a symbolic and aesthetic sense, giving continuous movement and dynamism in time and space to the paintings in which it appears.

From one perspective, the human shadow is the horizon that carries memories of the past and aspirations for the future, and from another, it is the study of movement and space that are both in constant change due to the persistence and continued appearance of this scene of mass displacement.

The core message of this project comes in the form of an inquiry about fate and the future, and about when this scene of mass displacement – which repeats itself almost daily now in various places and several times across the media – will end, and, lastly, about how one can confront and address this through art as an imagined visual language.