Syria’s Lost Generation

Through portraiture and audio recordings, Elena Dorfman (1965- ) offers a humanistic perspective to the Syrian conflict, a global crisis that has claimed more than 470,000 lives and driven 6.5 million people from their homes.

Commissioned by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Syria’s Lost Generation documents a small fraction of a population disproportionately affected by the war: teenagers. Dorfman was drawn most strongly to Syrian youth, explaining, “They seemed particularly shell-shocked and bereft…they spoke to me of powerful longing and frustration.”

Since graduating from Sarah Lawrence College in 1988, Elena Dorfman has specialized in documenting extreme circumstances and unusual subjects. She has exhibited her work at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Cincinnati Art Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Museum of Modern Art. Dorfman lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

Funding in part comes from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Along with Diana Al-Hadid, the show was on view at Mills College Art Museum from January 18 through March 12, 2017.