Syrian artist Sara Naim is in exile in Paris. Although she cannot go back to her home country, she incorporates its scents in her art with the help of olive oil soap bars.
ADVERTISEMENTFinding a place for home in her exhibitions, an artist incorporates the scent of Syria in her artwork which is currently on show in Dubai.
Sara Naim heavily relies on olive oil soap bars to build installations.
The Paris-based artist spends hours arranging soap bars to create installations that smell like the home she can no longer access.
Her latest artistic concept "Building Blocks", on display at Dubai's al-Serkal avenue, engages with notions of borders, boundaries and nostalgia.
"I have started to exoticise and almost fetishise my own country because it is no longer so accessible to me," she said.
Naim also uses soil and jasmine from her grandmother's Damascus garden to create abstract art.
The material she uses is brought from Syria by family members, but the ongoing conflict had made it difficult for her to put her hands on some Syrian products such as Aleppo olive oil soap.