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Artwork Description
Artwork Description
My Balloons Flew Away is a mixed media installation documented through digital photography, exploring loss, memory, and the fragile hope of holding on to what remains during times of conflict.
The work consists of hand drawn balloons in watercolor and ink on A5 sheets of paper, attached with adhesive tape to an otherwise empty white wall. The paper was found discarded in my grandfather’s house, while the colors were among the few things I carried with me as I fled the war in Sudan. Neither was chosen as a prepared art material, both were simply what I had left and what I could find.
Seated cross legged before the drawings, I gaze upward, my expression caught between despair and helplessness, as if watching something precious drift beyond reach. The balloons, familiar symbols of childhood and joy, become symbols of what can be lost: memories, a sense of belonging, and fragments of the self.
Through these modest materials, an invisible loss takes shape in the space between the drawings and the figure watching them. My stillness suspends the moment between longing and surrender, leaving an unsettling question: have the balloons become unreachable, or has the will to reach for them begun to fade?
My Balloons Flew Away is a mixed media installation documented through digital photography, exploring loss, memory, and the fragile hope of holding on to what remains during times of conflict.
The work consists of hand drawn balloons in watercolor and ink on A5 sheets of paper, attached with adhesive tape to an otherwise empty white wall. The paper was found discarded in my grandfather’s house, while the colors were among the few things I carried with me as I fled the war in Sudan. Neither was chosen as a prepared art material, both were simply what I had left and what I could find.
Seated cross legged before the drawings, I gaze upward, my expression caught between despair and helplessness, as if watching something precious drift beyond reach. The balloons, familiar symbols of childhood and joy, become symbols of what can be lost: memories, a sense of belonging, and fragments of the self.
Through these modest materials, an invisible loss takes shape in the space between the drawings and the figure watching them. My stillness suspends the moment between longing and surrender, leaving an unsettling question: have the balloons become unreachable, or has the will to reach for them begun to fade?
Story Behind The Work
Story Behind The Work
Just like a child watching her balloon drift away into the sky carrying with it everything she had,
This was the feeling that shaped the creation of this work.
Just like a child watching her balloon drift away into the sky carrying with it everything she had,
This was the feeling that shaped the creation of this work.
When war broke out in my country, Sudan I knew I was losing a lot, I had to choose what to carry with me and I chose my colors, I felt I was preserving a part of myself..as long as I had my colors I still had my language..a language through which I can live, and remain connected to who I was.
As despair grew, even the memory of having something of my own began to feel uncertain, so..I imagined something that belonged to me.
With my colors and scraps of paper I drew balloons, attached them to a wall and sat in front of them as I photographed myself.
Perhaps I needed to believe I had something to lose, I felt the loss yet had nothing I could point to and say "this is what I have lost", so I created something I could..
My balloons were not real, my feelings were, my colors were, and my balloons flew away.
When war broke out in my country, Sudan I knew I was losing a lot, I had to choose what to carry with me and I chose my colors, I felt I was preserving a part of myself..as long as I had my colors I still had my language..a language through which I can live, and remain connected to who I was.
As despair grew, even the memory of having something of my own began to feel uncertain, so..I imagined something that belonged to me.
With my colors and scraps of paper I drew balloons, attached them to a wall and sat in front of them as I photographed myself.
Perhaps I needed to believe I had something to lose, I felt the loss yet had nothing I could point to and say "this is what I have lost", so I created something I could..
My balloons were not real, my feelings were, my colors were, and my balloons flew away.
Artwork Details
Year: 2024
Medium: Watercolor and ink on found paper, wall installation, and digital photography.
Dimensions: Variable, depending on the arrangement of the installation. Individual sheets: A5 (14.8 × 21 cm).
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