Title: The Exodus — L'Exode

Artist: Ali Arkady

Year: 2026

Location / Context: Fishkhabur Border Crossing & Mount Sinjar Flight (August 2014 Yazidi Humanitarian Corridor)

Medium: Direct photographic transfer on fractured millimeter-thin lithographic limestone fragment, set flush into precision-carved archival cardboard plaque

Dimensions: 8 x 8 x 0.5 cm (3.15 x 3.15 x 0.20 in)

Weight: 40 g

Edition: Unique piece (1/1)

Price: €2,000

About the Artwork:

"The Exodus" is a singular miniature relief sculpture created in 2026, preserving one of the most profound documentary portraits of human resilience and devotion from the 2014 Yazidi genocide in Iraq. Photographed by Ali Arkady in August 2014 along the precarious pontoon bridge at Fishkhabur, the image portrays an exhausted Yazidi husband carrying his incapacitated wife across the border back into Iraqi Kurdistan.

Surviving the brutal siege of Mount Sinjar by ISIS, the couple fled barefoot across jagged, sun-scorched mountains for seven consecutive days. Upon reaching the emergency Newroz camp in Al-Hasakah, northeastern Syria, they received basic clinical care before walking back toward northern Iraq. The husband carried his wife in his arms when her lacerated feet could no longer bear her weight.

The technical execution embeds an authentic, millimeter-thin fractured shard of lithographic limestone flush into the center of an 8 x 8 cm archival cardboard mount. The direct photographic transfer fuses the grain of the documentation with the natural crystalline texture of the limestone. Far from being merely a photographic reproduction, this tactile object functions as a monumental secular relic—a testament to marital fidelity, bodily sacrifice, and the enduring dignity of displaced peoples.