Mohamad Hafez & Ahmed Badr

A message from the Center for Design and Material Culture: The Center for Design and Material Culture (CDMC), home to the Ruth Davis Design Gallery and the Lynn Mecklenburg Textile Gallery, will close our doors at least through April 10, following the recommendations of health and UW authorities at this time and out of an abundance of caution and care for our community. Accordingly, we have canceled or postponed all CDMC events and activities

2/5-3/15, UW Nancy Nicholas Hall-Lynn Mecklenburg Textile Gallery.

press release: The UN estimates there are currently over 70 million forcibly displaced people—refugees—throughout the world, about half of them under the age of 18. This spring, a handful of these individuals will have their stories represented in a unique exhibit in the Lynn Mecklenburg Textile Gallery at University of Wisconsin–Madison’s School of Human Ecology.

UNPACKED: Refugee Baggage, a collaboration between artist Mohamad Hafez and writer Ahmed Badr, and co-hosted by UW’s Middle East Studies Program, sculpturally recreates rooms, homes, buildings, and landscapes that have suffered the ravages of war—all in miniature within suitcases and mounted to gallery walls. Accompanying these works by Hafez are short audio clips from interviews with refugees conducted by Iraqi-born Wesleyan University student Ahmed Badr. Numerous pieces from the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection are displayed in dialogue with the show to further explore themes of loss, protection, and family.

“Over the past few years, I’ve been exploring different ways of expressing the refugee experience, and Mohamad’s artwork… presents reality as it is, and invites the spectator to simultaneously experience horror, pain, and awe,” says Badr of the collaboration.

“The experience has been humbling,” adds Hafez. “For somebody to trust us with an extremely personal story is an honor, and one that I take so dear to me and cherish. I am being entrusted to give a voice to the voiceless: normal, kind, genuine, and impressive people that society labels as marginal and insignificant.”

Textiles from the collection were thoughtfully chosen in response to the suitcases. “Some of the pieces on display are representative of endangered textile practices, deeply rooted making traditions that the upheaval of war has interrupted,” says Natalie Wright, Jane Graff Fellow in the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection and curator of the textiles in this exhibition. “These textiles tell stories of twentieth-century global conflicts by simultaneously memorializing devastating loss and projecting hopeful futures.”

The show will run Wednesday, February 5, through Sunday, March 15, including an opening reception and story-sharing event Thursday, February 6, a community discussion March 5, and a keynote lecture by Hafez March 6, as part of the Middle East Studies Program conference “Refugees In/From the Middle East.”

UNPACKED was developed with the generous support of the University of Wisconsin–Madison Middle East Studies Program and The Chipstone Foundation. To learn more, visit sohe.wisc.edu/unpacked or sign up to receive the latest gallery news and events by email.

Wed – Fri, 10am – 4pm (Thurs until 7pm); Sat – Sun, Noon – 4pm.

Related programming

Opening Reception & Story Sharing, Tours with Natalie Wright | February 6, 2020 | 5:00-7:00 p.m.: Join the School of Human Ecology with the Middle East Studies Program and Open Doors for Refugees in celebrating the opening of UNPACKED: Refugee Baggage in the Center for Design and Material Culture’s Lynn Mecklenburg Textile Gallery. Visitors are encouraged to share objects or images of objects that you either brought with you when you migrated the United States or would bring with you if you had just thirty minutes to pack and leave your home. Natalie Wright will offer tours of the exhibit during the reception. All are welcome to join us in conversation. More info.

CommUniversity Session: “Nonprofits and the Refugee Experience” | March 5, 2020 | 5:00-7:30 p.m. The UW Center for Community and Nonprofit Studies (the “CommNS”) and the Center for Design and Material Culture will co-host a special “CommUniversity” session on March 5th, 2020, focused on the intersection of the nonprofit sector and the refugee experience. More info.

Keynote Lecture: Mohamad Hafez | March 6, 2020 | 4:00-7:00 p.m. Hafez’s presentation is the keynote for the international conference “Refugees in/from the Middle East,” hosted by the Middle East Studies Program from March 6-7, 2020. The talk is at 4pm on Friday, March 6, followed by tours of the exhibition and a reception. More info.