Filmmaking & Writing by Garrett Gibbons
Photography by Lindsay Silsby
AUGUST 2016
WRITTEN BY TSOS TEAM MEMBER GARRETT GIBBONS
Aeham is a musician from Yarmouk, a besieged and mostly-destroyed suburb of Damascus in Syria. When the bombing began in 2014, Aeham pushed his piano on a vegetable cart through the rubble and put to music the songs of sorrow that were playing in the hearts of his people. In the Fall of 2015 Aeham’s piano was burned in the street and his life was threatened. He was forced to leave behind his wife and two young boys and flee his country.
With 600,000 of his fellow Syrians, Aeham made the journey to Germany, a distance of 2,400 miles (3,800 kilometers). Aeham now lives as a refugee in Wiesbaden, Germany. He continues to play his songs of sorrow in concerts throughout Europe.
"Music makes us happy. Full of energy and full of lovely things in the heart but it doesn't make anything for the stomach. In Yarmouk we don't can make anything for stomach because we have 100,000 people and we can't make falafels for 100,000 people but we can play music for 100,000 people... I have a lot of memories from music. I didn't [used to] play a lot of pain music. Now I play a lot of pain music because I have pain. I talk about Syria and play music, tell the people my story but it is not changing anything."
His music gives voice to the 18,000 still-besieged civilians who remain trapped in the battlefield of Yarmouk, without access to adequate food, drinking water, electricity or medical services. Hundreds of Yarmouk’s people have died during the 3-year siege due to starvation and violence. Since the beginning of the war in 2012, more than 4.4 million Syrians have fled the violence and devastation of their country and now live as refugees scattered throughout the world.
"There has been a place [in Yarmouk] made for reading underground. It is a safe place for 100 children. A small place for happiness because there has been a lot of sadness, a lot of dying there. I have a friend who makes music, makes jokes with the children.... it helps the children to don't stay in the street because it's very dangerous in the street...the sniper killed [a child] when she played piano with me [in the street]. Twelve years old is her age. Yes, it's good to play with the children under the ground, not outside."
"I don't have a lot of hope of changing it with the music. Three years into the siege, I stay, play piano, and fight [with] the people back in Yarmouk but I don't have energy to complete work like this. I need to make hope for my family. Ask the refugees about the help they need. Don't ask me. I don't need help."
On December 18, 2015, Aeham was awarded the International Beethoven Prize for Human Rights, Peace, Inclusion and the Fight Against Poverty. In August 2016 Aeham was reunited with his wife and two children in Germany.
In the July 2016 photo above, Aeham shares his pure enjoyment of music with his young neighbor, Keno Graumann, in Wiesbaden, Germany. Keno's parents encouraged Aeham to use their grand piano to help him pass the time while he waited to be reunited with his wife and two children, who were waiting for the necessary documents to join him. The family was reunited in August.
Aeham has become something of an icon here in Germany through his great musical talents. In the above photo he is handing out flowers at one of his concerts (for which he never accepts money) to all of the refugee volunteers in the community.
Aeham with the TSOS Team.
February 15, 2017 | An Update on Aeham
TSOS team member Elizabeth Thayer recently completed an oil portrait of Aeham. Below are her thoughts on capturing Aeham on canvas.
I met Aeham in the summer of 2016 in Germany. Despite having just travelled all night by bus from a concert in Poland, he was open and so friendly, with a smile that lit up his whole face. After less than a year in Europe he was speaking enough German and English to have a good conversation, and even make jokes.
But when he told us about his life in Syria and his escape to the EU and his wife and children still in Yarmouk, his eyes got so deep and sad I thought the spark would never return. And then he played his music for us. It is a sound that will stay with me forever.
Aeham has since been reunited with his family and performs concerts all over Europe to help the cause of Syrians affected by war. He has been called Europe’s most famous refugee. I wanted to somehow embed Aeham’s music into my portrait of him because it is so expressive of his story.
I painted a code in the bottom corner of the portrait, which, when scanned with a mobile device, will take the viewer directly to a sound recording of Aeham’s music, making this a collaborative artwork in a way. I hope this is symbolic of how people can come together across oceans and cultural divides to make something meaningful and even beautiful.
Video text summary:
Aeham is a musician from Yarmouk, a besieged and mostly-destroyed suburb of Damascus in Syria.
When the bombing began in 2014, Aeham pushed his piano on a vegetable cart through the rubble and put to music the songs of sorrow that were playing in the hearts of his people.
In the Fall of 2015 Aeham’s piano was burned in the street and his life was threatened.
He was forced to leave behind his wife and two young boys and flee his country.
With 600,000 of his fellow Syrians, Aeham made the journey to Germany...a distance of 2,400 miles (3,800 kilometers).
Aeham now lives as a refugee in Wiesbaden, Germany...
...and he continues to play his songs of sorrow in concerts throughout Europe...
...and to give voice to the 18,000 still-besieged civilians who remain trapped in the battlefield of Yarmouk, without access to adequate food, drinking water, electricity or medical services.
Hundreds of Yarmouk’s people have died during the 3-year siege due to starvation and violence.
Since the beginning of the war in 2012, more than 4.4 million Syrians have fled the violence and devastation of their country and now live as refugees scattered throughout the world.
On December 18, 2015 Aeham was awarded the International Beethoven Prize for Human Rights, Peace, Inclusion and the Fight Against Poverty
In August, 2016 Aeham was reunited with his wife and two children in Germany.