Humaira Abid: Searching for Home

Humaira Abid, Searching for Home, 2016–17.
Pine wood (carved) and red wood stain.
Objects: dimensions vary, installation: 19” x 72” x 36

In Humaira Abid’s exquisitely haunting exhibition Searching for Home, the artist’s sculpted wooden creations invoke the troubling specter of the global refugee crisis and its trails of ruined lives. Inspired by real accounts of displaced people- all personally researched and documented by Abid- the exhibition hints at untold tragedies surrounding the collateral victims of persecution, political conflicts, ethnic cleansing, and natural disasters, a disproportionate number of whom are women and girls. Through her chosen medium of wood, Abid unleashes the innate properties of the material to suggest the ineffable weight and gravity of this continuing humanitarian crisis.