Twenty-seven glass swallows by Felekşan Onar are moving into the Aleppo Room at the Museum für Islamische Kunst. With her installation, the Turkish artist wants to draw attention to the situation of Syrian refugees in her hometown of Istanbul.

Felekşan Onar's 2017 series of 27 mold-blown glass swallows directly relates to the pictorial world of the Aleppo Room: the colorful and lively peacocks, ducks and pigeons of the wall panelling stand in oppressive contrast to the small, fragile birds with trimmed wings resting on the floor. The work is not only reminiscent of the sad fate of the former flourishing metropolis, which has now been destroyed by the civil war, but also deals with the situation of Syrian refugees in today's Turkey.

Scenes near her studio in the Pera district of Istanbul have inspired Onar: “The stranded refugees find themselves in the midst of a chaotic city - they sit on stairs and sidewalks, not knowing what's coming next, where to go ... They have landed, but are unable to fly or move.”

Felekşan Onar, born in Ankara in 1966, is an internationally acclaimed glass artist. She studied at Cam Ocağı near Istanbul and since 2003 she runs her own studio Fy-shan Glass in Pera, Istanbul. In her work Felekşan Onar experiments with various techniques in glassmaking.