ALÂTHAR: Seul(e) après Daesh

Organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Geneva Liaison Office   

 About the exhibition:

The UNESCO Geneva Liaison Office presents the photo exhibition “Alâthar: Seul(e) après Daesh”.

The ALÂTHAR exhibition is dedicated to the theme of destruction and reconstruction. It explores the re-appropriation of heritage in the context of war difficulties. The artist Lara Scarlett Gervais explores various themes of loneliness, memory, forgetfulness through her artworks. This offers an fascinating insight into an unspeakable, inaccessible and distant world - a reflection on the universe with emptiness and abandonment.

About the artist:

After studying archeology at the Sorbonne and the Louvre School, Lara Scarlett Gervais travels the world: the Trans-Siberian, the Silk Road, or the Balkans, the Middle East: Iran, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Oman, Emirates, Turkey. She lets the random encounters guide her travels. In contact with local people, she developed her passion for ethnology and photography. It is a unique and precious testimony of a woman who has been to one of the most dangerous zones of the 21^st century. In 2016, Lara Scarlett Gervais spent more than six months between Syria, Iraq, Kurdistan (Baghdad, Homs, Damascus, Tartous, Mar Mussa, Qaraqosh, Palmyra ...). She also lived among the Sunnis, Shiites, Ismailis, Kurds,Christians, Alawites, Yezidis.

About the artwork:

The exhibition includes 20-30 photographs taken in Palmyra, Nimrud, Damascus, Baghdad, Samarra and Qaraqosh.

• 1st series brings us to Palmyra, during the evacuation of the works of the museum by the DGAM (Directon Générale des Antiquités et des Musées). This series was taken during the artist's first trip (March-July 2016).

• 2nd series takes us to Nineveh on the Nimroud site which suffered from the same type of destruction as Palmyra, then in the largest Christian city of Iraq: Qaraqosh, completely destroyed by the Islamic State. These photographs were taken during the artist's second trip (October-December 2016) between Baghdad and Beyrough.