Aleppo, 2016
Digital Print, 48”x56”
Preface: On September 28, 2016, just hours before the UN Security Council met to discuss the implementation of resolution 2286 on the protection of medical facilities in Syria, two more Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)-supported hospitals in Aleppo were seriously damaged by bombing and went out of service. According to the Directorate of Health in east Aleppo, from September 21 to 26, those hospitals that are still functional in Aleppo reported receiving more than 822 wounded, including at least 221 children, and more than 278 dead bodies of which at least 96 were children. The Syrian government must stop the indiscriminate bombing; and Russia as an indispensable political and military ally of Syria has the responsibility to exert the pressure to stop this.¹
Commentary: This work depicts exactly 350 pieces of broken concrete upon a hospital gurney - the estimated number of medical facilities to have been attacked since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011 through the end of March 2016.² Set against a background of ‘hospital’ white, the work brings together the fallen objects responsible for taking human life with an object which aids in restoring it.
¹ Syria: MSF urges Syrian government and its allies to stop indiscriminate bombing in Aleppo, (International website of Médecins Sans Frontières, 2016)
² N. Ireland, Bombing hospitals in Syria 'an actual strategy of war,' human rights group says, (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 2016)
© 2016 atelier Christophe Du Chemin
