Ola Al-Sharif, A Pillow on My Head, 2025
Ola Al-Sharif, A Pillow on My Head, 2025
A personal experience that explores new meanings of sleep and reveals its extended roots and artificial forms. In it, I observe the ashes of my destroyed city, after fear penetrated my mind and being, where I experienced the bitterness of war. Sleep tormented me more than death. It was another face of war, surrounding me on all sides and watching me throughout the night, robbing me of my sense of logic and filling my mind with thoughts of blood, bullets, smoke and dust, which I imagined I was swallowing to the point that I could not breathe. I was one of the soldiers in this battle, rebelling against the orders of war and forcing myself to sleep, despite the sound of sirens, the explosion of bombs, the voices of children, the screams of women, and all the horrors around me. I was so stubborn that I slept in the midst of genocide.
This work was created as part of the Urgent Grant Program 2025.
