Hybrid research work centered on the Euphrates River and the Suspended Bridge as living witnesses.

During the Assad regime’s violent assaults and siege on Deir ez-Zor, and amid competing military factions fighting for control, the Euphrates was among the first targets. The bridges that once connected the city were systematically destroyed. The Suspended Bridge, once a symbol of post-colonial modernity, revolution, and resistance, was shelled leaving only three columns standing, suspended midair. Across the city, all seven bridges endured similar violence: whoever controlled water and its crossings controlled movement and life itself.

Through imagined memory walks, reading, digital collage and sound, I trace political, personal, architectural, ecological and Islamic layers of memory related to crossing. Fragments of water prayers, Euphratean poetry, and local mythologies surface through moments of departure, arrival and suspension. The work becomes an attempt at (non)crossing, a movement toward (no)return, listening for what remains, resists and continues to witness within the river’s suspended flow.

Research sharing and talk behind the project presented at SLARG.