Syrian Arab Republic

Palmyra is remembered not only for its destruction, but for the form of life it once sustained. Shaped by exchange rather than exclusion, it was a place where cultures and religions coexisted, and where memory was embedded within civic space.

Among its most distinctive monuments were the tower tombs, built between the first and third centuries AD. These vertical funerary structures brought the dead into proximity with the living, affirming continuity and shared presence across generations. All were destroyed during the Syrian war, and many funerary reliefs were looted and dispersed abroad, erasing not only material heritage but a cultural vision of coexistence.

The Tower Tomb of Palmyra reactivates this lost form as a contemporary site of encounter. Conceived as a full-scale immersive installation, the work translates the past into a lived, embodied experience.

Inside, monumental figurative paintings by Sara Shamma inspired by Palmyrene reliefs form a circular interior, accompanied by sound and scent drawn from the desert landscape. Installed in a courtyard of the Università Iuav di Venezia, the tower places ancient funerary architecture in dialogue with the present. It is a place of tolerance, a quiet yet resolute ethical proposition in a world shaped by loss and displacement.