The tension between Hanan’s original mother tongue, Arabic, and English, the new language that she acquired as she fled from war, inspired her practice because of the opposing directions in which they are written and the difficulty of translating even a simple word from one language into the other.

To create Unfinished, Hanan asked passers-by in different locations to contribute by writing in their own language the word that best described them as individuals.

Unfinished brings together many people and languages, celebrates the power of individuals, the strength in community, while underlining the need for social transformation. This evolving work reflects Hanan’s life-long artistic exploration of how humanity communicates.