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In Flour and Sand Bricks, Narges Mohammadi gives physical form to a memory of survival during the Afghan civil war. At that time, families often had no choice but to purchase flour adulterated with sand. Eating this mixture filled the stomach but also poisoned the body, reflecting the impossible trade-offs faced under conditions of scarcity.

The work consists of around forty-five blocks, burned into the shape of bricks. Their form recalls the most basic unit of construction, a foundation of modern civilization. Yet the materials from which they are made—sand and flour—point to a troubling paradox. Sand, the matter of deserts, stone, and buildings that rise and crumble. Flour, the basis of bread, nourishment, and communal survival. Mixed, they form not sustenance but toxicity, a substance that cannot sustain life.

The installation sits uneasily between shelter and starvation. The work becomes a metaphor for lives caught between nourishment and deprivation, between the possibility of home and the threat of exile. Flour and Sand Bricks asks what is required to survive, and what hidden costs are embedded in the foundations of survival itself.