Ali Heydar (1992, Deir-ez-Zor) was born in Syria. Due to circumstances beyond his control, he ended up in the Flemish village of Essen. He met Michiel Burger (1983, Yamoussoukro) in Antwerp, where the two men worked together for several years collecting garbage in the Antwerp municipality of Schilde.
These drawings are part of a collection of drawings made between 2016 and 2025 during a collaborative effort by Michiel Burger and Ali Heydar to document personal memories of a non-specified conflict in the Middle East. Over time, the focus of this project slowly diverged toward an array of subjects such as myths, historical events, childhood memories, and other dubious anecdotes.
“Crematorium IV”
“Allotment”
“Car”
“Apartment Building”
“Mosque”
“Knight”
