Alissa Everett, USA

Home Bleak Home

The refugees camps of Northern Iraq are the home to thousands of internally displaced Yazidi people. The Yazidis are an ancient culture, with rich traditions, intricate rituals and colorful festivals who have been displaced from their spiritual homeland by the spread of ISIS. The camps are bleak, full of straight lines and nondescript locations. The layout is oppressively regular, the architecture monotonous functionality, and colors inescapable tones of grey and pale blue. Together these elements combine into an impersonal man-made environment, a dehumanizing place that make creativity nearly impossible and leads to a loss of individuality. It is an invented reality, a place that seems to have no location, holding people of no nation.