May your tears never dry, you who weep over stones

2026

Composed of 29,221 clay earth bricks, May your tears never dry, you who weep over stones is a monumental floor installation that draws on mosaic motifs found in sites of social and cultural significance across the Arab world. With histories spanning three millennia, twenty-three sites were researched, each is now under threat: damaged or destroyed through conflict and war.

An exploration of craft’s relationship with contemporary art, every aspect of the work has been created through an understanding of the care and repair made possible by “many hands” and is the result of a complex process that included deep research, detailed drawing and coding, and long-term collaborations with Saudi-based artisans. Each brick was handmade using intricately shaped wooden molds and naturally hued clay earths, sourced from across the Kingdom, and baked in the Riyadh sun.

Eschewing binding agents, the process allows the bricks to crack over time, underscoring the fragility of material heritage in today’s world and the collective risk of cultural loss. Awartani and her artisan collaborators work against this precarity, raising awareness, taking time to mourn what is lost, and sustaining crucial knowledge through multigenerational co-authorship.

Just as tears are never just tears, stones are never neutral, especially when in ruins. This work, in title, creation and exhibition, keeps the past alive in the present and is an urgent act of resistance against forgetting, against erasure. It is presented in solidarity with those who tend these intangible and tangible material heritages – living in familiarity and with care, as custodians, and through steadfast scholarship, preservation, and restoration.

Installation view of May your tears never dry, you who weep over stones., 2026 © Dana Awartani. Photo courtesy of the artist and the Visual Arts Commission, Commissioner of the National Pavilion of Saudi Arabia