FROM SYRIA TO LEBANON TO LISMORE: THE STABLEYARD STUDIO ARTIST
Lismore Castle Arts have awarded their inaugural Stable Yard Artist’s Studio to the visual artist, Aram Wahhoud.
From Syria, Aram resettled in Ireland last summer after spending eight years in Lebanon as a refugee.
Aram told The Avondhu that he became interested in art at a very young age and began his career by studying fashion design in Syria to help his parents who used to have a fashion production business.
“I studied fashion so that I could get better and just bring it to the next level, but then I found myself in a limited place because fashion design didn’t satisfy me artistically. I was hungry for more art,” Aram said.
Aram then went on to study art in Damascus, Syria but then war broke out. Aram had to flee the country, arriving in Lebanon as a refugee with no right to housing or work.
“Lebanon is not a country where a refugee has the right to stay or to work or to live even, its a very complicated political situation but it was the only country that I could flee to and be safe for a while,” he said.
Although Aram did not sculpt while in Lebanon, he did begin to work on his career as an artist in other ways and worked with NGO’s to help other refugees to express themselves through art.
“I did collages, workshops teaching art and so many activities with marginalised areas in Lebanon with NGOs where people arrived in there to have shelter, because most of them had witnessed dire conflict in Syria. I worked with so many of them and I used art as a means to let those people have a little bit of relief after what they had witnessed.
“The violence they had seen was so terrifying and it was so painful for them so art was a solution and that’s what kept me alive as an artist over there in order to save my life as an artist and to save others’ lives by giving some relief,” Aram said.
‘NEW, NEW, NEW, NEW NORMAL’
Aram arrived in Ireland last June after being on a United Nations Refugee Agency waiting list to receive resettlement. The Irish Government reviewed Aram’s case and arranged for him to be resettled in Lismore.
“When I came to Ireland, I came with two pieces of luggage, only my essential things. I left everything behind, all my sculptures, all my paintings. I survived Lebanon and I survived Beruit, I am so lucky they saved my life,” he added.
While Aram was just beginning his new life, the Covid-19 pandemic reared its head, meaning setbacks for Aram, but this is something Aram is determined to pull through.
“When people talk about ‘the new normal’, this is my new, new, new, new normal, because I have faced so many drastic changes in my life,” he said
Lismore Castle Arts welcomed applications for inaugural Stable Yard Studio Artist’s award over the summer from local artists to support their practice. Aram applied as he said he struggled to find a space and business in Lismore and has since been awarded the studio, rent and bill free.
“When I got the agreement and when Paul, the curator of the gallery, showed me the studio, I was so happy. I have never felt that happiness before. I walked back to the town to collect my stuff and bring them up here because I was so excited,” Aram said.
Aram is currently working on a series of scultpures depicting the human body, one of which is a replica of a sculpture that he had to leave behind when fleeing Syria.
“It’s all about what I experienced in Syria. In my perspective, you can’t separate art from life experience. What I experienced in my life pushed me to that level where I am now, free to express what I have experienced on many levels. I can express vulnerability, pain, sadness,” Aram said.
UNPACKING HIS ‘LUGGAGE’
Although Aram’s art expresses the pain and suffering he has witnessed and has personally lived through, he is trying to become more positive as a person and said that coming to Ireland has helped with this.
“I started feeling belonging. I haven’t felt like that before. Belonging means that the place gives you an opportunity, people around you give you so much support because they believe in you,
“I do believe that every human being has the right to express and to say their opinon or what they feel. This is very important, it gives us enlightenment. Like, imagine a hot air balloon, you need to get rid of the weight that you are carrying so that you can feel lighter and fly, and this is what I am doing right now. I need to unpack my luggage,” he added.
The next step for Aram now is to start producing more work, and eventually start selling his art, and he is thankfully able to do this because of Lismore Castle Arts and the Stable Yard Studio. Aram will be working at the Stableyard until October when an exhibition of his works will be held.
Concluding, he said “Without this opportunity, I don’t know where I would be. This is a turning point in my life.”