Two-channel video installation, 11mins & 7mins.

Produced with support of The Khalid Shoman Foundation, Amman. 

 

For Homesick, Sarkissian recreated and destroyed an architecturally exact scaled model of the apartment building in Damascus where his parents were still living. Like many of their generation, they refused to leave Syria during the war. Sarkissian grew up in this building, and lived there until he left Syria in 2008. It is the place where he belongs, a container for his memories, and a place for his family’s collective identity. 

Through Homesick Sarkissian constructs a story that, considering the political situation and the ongoing destruction in his home country, could very well take place at any time. What would be the consequences? What is it to expect the worst? Can we fast-forward the present and acknowledge loss and begin reshaping a collapsed history before the event? At the same time, by taking fate into his own hands, he is trying to regain some control over the situation and to tear down an unreal imagination.