Colwell Speaker Series Presents Mohamad Hafez

Syrian artist and architect Mohamad Hafez will speak at the Academy on Friday, November 2 at 7:00 p.m. in the Stuart Black Box Theater in the Charles Hosmer Morse Center for the Arts as part of the Colwell Speaker Series. Mr. Hafez will speak about his recent project UNPACKED: Refugee Baggage that highlights the lives of 10 refugee families resettled in the U.S. through sculptures that depict their stories using suitcases donated by grandchildren of European refugees from post WWII. 

Syrian artist and architect Mohamad Hafez was born in Damascus, raised in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and educated in the Midwestern United States. According to his website, “Expressing the juxtaposition of East and West within him, Hafez’s art reflects the political turmoil in the Middle East through the compilation of found objects, paint and scrap metal. Using his architectural skills, Hafez creates surrealistic Middle Eastern streetscapes that are architectural in their appearance yet politically charged in their content.”

Hafez’s artwork is currently part of a display at the Brooklyn Museum, Syria, Then and Now: Stories from Refugees a Century Apart. It has recently been featured in four highly acclaimed exhibitions and profiled in Connecticut Public Radio and The New York Times.

Headmaster Tom Lovett said, “Mohamad Hafez has continued to raise awareness about Syrian refugees since he spoke here in 2016. With his latest work UNPACKED: Refugee Baggage, Hafez shows his continuing strong advocacy for these victims of violence. I strongly encourage all those interested in Syria, displaced families, or humanitarian efforts to help refugees to attend this talk. I would love to see all the seats in the Stuart Black Box Theater filled as a sign of our community’s solidarity with those who are affected by this crisis.”

Further information about Mohamad Hafez, his life, and his art can be found at mohamadhafez.com.