What happens to a home once it is left behind? Does it remain in stone and silence—or does it migrate too, transforming itself into song, into memory?

In Imaginary Homeland, memory defines architecture. Through layered drawings on denim and linen—materials marked by wear, labor, and tenderness—the artist reimagines the homes of childhood countries that have

been abandoned or transformed. Inspired by the historic structures of Aleppo, Syria, these works are not merely reconstructions of place, but emblems of what endures: the warmth of a kitchen, the curved flow of an old-fashioned

cursive, the comfort of a lullaby passed down.

Some pieces draw from the mythic: a saint who once lived atop a column near Aleppo, considered mad in life and saintly in death. His pillar became a site of pilgrimage. People broke off pieces of it to eat, believing it would bring fertility.

Here, the sacred and the absurd meld into a symbol of endurance, ritual, and faith. In contrast, a series of 24 small color paintings offers an intimate reflection on our relationship with the land—planting, harvesting, and the quiet dialogue

between soil and hand. These works honor the cycles of the harvest, showing how the earth inspires us, and how, in turn, we help it to bloom.

Two major installations extend the exhibition’s terrain: one honoring migrants who crossed the Mediterranean Sea in search of safety, and another meditating on the birth of language and culture—fragile beginnings from

which entire worlds grow. As the artist has often contended, "Art holds a responsibility to document time—so that future generations may understand what it meant to live, to dream, and to endure in the moment of its making.”

Together, these works ask: What do we carry when we are forced to leave? What is buried, what is remembered, and what—through memory and care—might still take root?

Kevork Mourad was born in Kameshli Syria, received his degree from the Yerevan institute of Fine Art, and now lives in New York. A painter and video artist, he has had his animated and live visuals performed around the world--at the Spoleto Festival in SC (2022), Korea National Opera in Seoul (2020), National Cathedral in DC (2020), Dutch Royal Palace for the Prince Claus Foundation (2016), Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC (2018, 2012, 2010), Aga Khan Museum in Toronto (2018), Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA (2018), ElbPhilharmonie in Hamburg (2017), and MuCEM in Marseille (2015,2013), among many others.

His work is in the permanent collection of Paris's Institut du Monde Arabe, the Spurlock Museum, and his towering Seeing Through Babel was added to the permanent collection of the Aga Khan Museum run Toronto in 2023. The 2016

recipient of the Robert Bosch Stiftung prize, he created the short film Four Acts for Syria. A member for two decades of the Silkroad ensemble, he is one of the artists featured in the documentary The Music of Strangers, directed by Morgan Neville. He has exhibited in galleries around the US, Europe and the Middle East, including the Asia Society Triennial in 2020, the Spurlock Museum, Illinois, (2020), the Paris Art Fair, (2019), the Rose Art Museum, Boston (2017), the Claude Lemand Gallery, Paris (2016), Kuchling Galerie in Berlin (2019), and Tabari Art Space, Dubai, (2019). He is the recipient of a 2023 New York State Council of the Arts grant and was a fellow at the Fountainhead residency in Miami in 2024.

He is represented by Galerie Tanit, Beirut and Munich. His most recent exhibition was with Perrotin in Shanghai in spring 2025.