Anne-Fatima Syed is a Pakistani-American Graphic Designer focused on Branding & Marketing in the Bay Area.
We Wrote Obituaries While Praising Our God
Book Installation
Tools Used: Illustrator + Indesign + Photoshop
June 2023
We Wrote Obituaries While Praising Our God was my capestone for the Design Media Arts program at the University of California Los Angeles.
A book installation that holds a collection of obituaries of attack victims from Islamophobic incidents. The events are narrated through fragments of a short-story written by my dear friend, Shania Jafri.
Jannat-al-Baqi, translated as “The Garden of Trees” is the driving force of symbolism within this piece. As one of the largest graveyards in Medina, the neglect of its care amongst the Muslim Ummah speaks towards the carelessness and neglect that lies at the foundation of our humanity. As each martyr site in this piece is recognized, the native tree associated to the region of the attack contributes to a visual imagery of a “Garden of Trees” that is built.
Description:
The introduction of the book holds an explanation of Jannat al-Baqi to the reader as well as an index to help digest the information. For each martyr site, there is an identifiable tree and bird corresponding to the land of their people.
As shown, this piece focused on nine specific instances: Christchurch Mosque Shooting in New Zealand, Malisbong Masjid Massacre in the Phillipines, Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre in Palestine, Peshawar Mosque shooting in Pakistan, Quebec City Mosque Shooting in Canada, Kembe Massacre in the Central African Republic, Albuquerque Shootings in the United States, Sinai Mosque attack in Egypt, the Chapel Hill shooting in the United States, and the Kattakundy Mosque attack in Sri Lanka.
As shown, this piece focused on nine specific instances: Christchurch Mosque Shooting in New Zealand, Malisbong Masjid Massacre in the Phillipines, Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre in Palestine, Peshawar Mosque shooting in Pakistan, Quebec City Mosque Shooting in Canada, Kembe Massacre in the Central African Republic, Albuquerque Shootings in the United States, Sinai Mosque attack in Egypt, the Chapel Hill shooting in the United States, and the Kattakundy Mosque attack in Sri Lanka.
Shortly after the introduction, fragments of a short-story begins that is followed with a description of the attack.
Once the attack is explained, the obituaries are presented through the symbolism of birds. In reference to Surah Al-Ma’idah, Verse 110 (in the Holy Quran) individual martyrs are represented as the birds of their land to symbolize life. The number of birds represent the death count of the incident.
There are instances where there are no obituaries of the names of the martyrs due to the neglect of their nation’s government.
The book ends with a compilation of the trees collected from each region, making a Garden of Trees within the site of Jannat al-Baqi.
Installation:
For the installation, the dynamic nature of the pilgrims performing Hajj moving on the pages represents how spirituality and community transcends violence. In other words, despite the pain we collectively feel towards the departure of our loved ones, we continue to write obituaries while praising our God.
Reflection:
This has been the hardest project I’ve worked on to date due to the intensive research and sadness filled among the pages. The size of the book carries a great width to represent the dimensions of a rifle. Some, if not all, were murdered with the use guns, which speaks on gun violence and the misuse of these weapons. An observation I noticed throughout my research was that majority of the killers attacked the martyrs during the congregation of the Friday prayers. Most of the time, it was while the prayers were in prostration, a highly vulnerable position.