A Syrian Time Capsule 

Refugees experience loss on a massive scale; loss of family, friends, community, property and most importantly the loss of belonging and home. We carry our home within us. Home for refugees can be anything, a song, a type of tea, a language, or a physical item we own which acts as an active reminder of where we come from. Those items carry memories of people and places, memories of childhood and love stories. They carry an image of a place that once we called home. I am a master student at the University of Glasgow studying Global migration and social justice. In my dissertation I wanted to explore the narrative of other refugees who brought objects on their journeys and what are the significance of those objects is with the meaning that people attached to those items. 

 

The idea of the project is inspired by my personal story of an item I carried with me from my home in Damascus and the feelings it brings back every time I set eyes on it in my new home in the UK. It is not only a constant reminder of the life I had back in Syria but also a piece of hope I hold within me to return to a lost homeland. 

 

The primary purpose of this project is to provide a space for refugee participants to explore their items and a space for telling the stories of the objects they have chosen to carry with them to the host countries. The significance of these objects is identified in their representation of hope and sometimes pain for their owners. Some participants said that lost homelands have been reduced to these objects, the exhibition’s participants tell their stories in a way they found suitable and took a picture to share with the world.