Amer al Akel is a Syrian multimedia artist who uses installation, film, illustration, and sculpture to explore themes of displacement, nationhood, and personal identity imbued in place. During months of...
Amer al Akel is a Syrian multimedia artist who uses installation, film, illustration, and sculpture to explore themes of displacement, nationhood, and personal identity imbued in place. During months of quarantining during the pandemic, Akel was unable to access his studio. Melting their Power is a project created from his home that explores the ephemerality of the restrictions that dictate our collective interactions, travel, and ability to work. The accompanying phrase, “Everything is temporary, nothing lasts forever,” highlights a hopeful response to the current overpowering force of a pandemic.
Akel graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus, Syria (2010) and received his MA in Fine Arts from Weißensee Kunsthochschule, Germany (2016). He has exhibited widely in Syria and Europe, and recently participated in exhibitions at Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz, Berlin (2020), Melpomène Beaux-Arts de Paris (2019), and Galerie Postel, Hamburg (2018), among others. He held an artist-in-residence position at Kunsthalle Exnergasse-Wuk in Vienna in 2015 and has been nominated for several awards, including the DAAD Prize for outstanding achievements at Berlin Weissensee School of Art which he won in 2019.