Saba Jallas is a young Yemeni artist who visually transforms photos of the war into images that lift up humanity, hope, and peace. Jallas sees women as images of compassion, so often her reworking of the photos of smoke from the war involve women, sometimes holding children.
Jallas was outside of Yemen when the war began and felt great worry and sadness which have never left her. To counter her sorrow she began drawing images of hope and beauty across photos she has collected of the bombs falling upon Yemeni cities. As her images have gotten more attention she hopes to challenge the world to make a better effort to resolve the crisis. “Stop talking about policy,” she says. “The humanitarian side is more important and, we need to refocus our attention on it.”
Jallas says, “I find that the solution lies in loving each other.” She says she believes in “humanity and absolute optimism.” Such optimism is not cheap for her as the war has touched her own family deeply; her brother was killed in the war while serving as an officer in the Yemeni Army.
The picture above of the woman caressing her child captures Jallas’ vision of a future where children will grow up in peace. “I loved the idea of calling for peace and love through my work, because I believe that art is connected to humanity, and to the civilians that have been suffering under the fires of the war that has been going on for months,” says Jallas.
