FAIRFIELD, CONN.- The Fairfield University Art Museum presents the new exhibition Mohamad Hafez: Collateral Damage in the museum’s Walsh Gallery from October 26 – December 15, 2018. Born in Damascus, Syria, raised in Saudi Arabia, and educated in the Midwestern U.S., artist and architect Mohamad Hafez explores the impact of the political turmoil of the Middle East through hyper-realistic streetscapes crafted from found objects, paint, and scrap metal. Architectural in appearance yet politically charged in content, his miniaturized tableaus are alternately nostalgic, charming, and deeply painful.

Hafez’s work has been highlighted in feature articles in The New Yorker magazine and The New York Times, and his work has been included in numerous museum exhibitions including Artists in Exile: Expression of Loss and Hope (Fall 2017) at the Yale University Art Gallery, with new work currently included in an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum entitled, Syria, Then and Now: Stories from Refugees a Century Apart (October 13, 2018-January 13, 2019).

This exhibition features a selection of work across multiple projects, including the site-specific installation Sea Garbage, as well as pieces from his Baggage series, in which the artist creates tableaus suggestive of the experience of refugees, many of whom are forced to flee their homes at short notice, or with only as much as they can carry, and places them inside vintage suitcases.

Mohamad Hafez: Collateral Damage also features selected works by two contemporary Syrian artists, photographer and digital artist Hala el-Abed and filmmaker Waref abu Quba, which explore themes of violence and loss centered on the Syrian refugee crisis.