Diana Al-Hadid constructs large, architectural sculptures that merge classical, Western iconography (Chartres Cathedral) with Eastern references (the Tower of Babel). She received an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2005. Al-Hadid has said that as an Arab-American she negotiates two different cultures, and, in her work, she balances polarities such as the secular and the sacred, microcosmic details and the cosmos, the past and the future. Some common themes in her work are “impossible architecture, unreachable places, and corrupted enterprises" (A.C.).