Posted By Hassan Ramadan, Illustrator, SCA

Ana asked me to draw many sections and profiles in the FAD* area. Every morning, I would go to my tent to prepare my things and then have a look at the site: it was so crowded, so noisy, with everyone otherwise discussing together, digging or recording, the workers talking all together as well.

A very busy site. Photo by Mark Lehner

So I wondered if I can work through all that. But once I went down to the site passing through walls, people and the meter tapes which are extended through the whole site until I reached the part which I’m going to draw, nobody even noticed that I’m passing. Just like a ghost. Everyone is busy with what they are doing here …

Once I start to draw, I heard nothing except the features and layers’ voice while they are fighting and talking to me to be put in their place in my profile drawings. During this time, they invite whole ideas into my mind, and they never stop until all of them arrive in their right place. But after that, they start to whisper in a very quiet harmony almost singing together while I’m writing their birth certificate (their label).

Drawing away. Photo by Saied Talbeya

I am filled with happiness when I hold my drawing between my hands and I am looking at it. It is the same case with any other kind of drawing. I then wrap it, and in that moment the noise is back with no mercy.
Yes, with my drawings I feel nothing except them; all my senses are just for them. I feel that the world is just for me and the drawings.

* FAD is the site code for the Kom el-Fakhry settlement. The cemetery adjacent to the west is FAC.