Execution Squares

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Bonniers Konsthall

Courtesy of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. ©Kevin Todora

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth

Sharjah Art Foundation

Mori Art Museum

KW Institute for Contemporary Art

New Museum

Bonnefanten

Series of 14 archival inkjet prints.
13 images 125&#215;160 cm.
1 image 125&#215;175 cm. 
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Execution Squares depicts public squares in three Syrian cities – Aleppo, Latakia and Damascus – where criminals are publicly executed. Taken in the early morning hours at the time the executions usually take place, the quiet images reveal a fragile paradox that exists between the beauty and serenity of the physical public space and the political and social realities that they obscure. 
Using photography as a tool to convince both himself and the audience, Sarkissian on the one hand demonstrates the continuing existence of these hanged corpses after they are taken away, and on the other hand he tries to erase them from memory by using the photographic medium as evidence that there are, in fact, no bodies there.