The Hamada Desert in southwest Algeria has been dubbed by the Sahrawi people as “home of fire”. Heat levels have increased to a staggering record of 52 degrees Celsius. The Saharawi people, the indigenous nomadic communities of Western Sahara, were displaced to the Hamada Desert in the 70s when war broke out after neighboring Morocco and Mauritania invaded the territory. The Sahrawi people who fled the war ended up in refugee camps in this desert. This multi channel video installation brings up realities, metaphors, and poetics heating up life in the desert. Two juxtaposed channels follow aesthetics of survival and ways of living and adapting in the desert. The slow pace of life in the desert dominating both the human and other-than human is largely dictated by the heat and heat related factors. The installation also patchworks different desert elements, materials, artifacts and spaces such as sand particles, sandstorms, dust, and sunlight, which contribute to the element of “fire”, and tents, fabric, shade, water and plants, on the other hand, as “counter fire” elements. Dust particles, for instance, significantly contribute to the heat by deflecting light in different directions. Certain dust storms can also act as a greenhouse trapping the heat and causing breathing difficulty. The heat shapes the desert landscapes as well as the culture scape of its inhabitants. The reactions, interventions and responses to these realities mark a way of living unique to the Sahrawi people who had to adapt and navigate their survival culturally and politically. The Sahrawi people, who have been nomads for centuries are no longer able to practice any nomadic way of living because Western Sahara is one of the most heavily polluted areas with anti-personnel landmines and explosives. There are thousands of people and animal victims of landmines. The landmines littering the territory are another man-made factor fueling war, explosives, loss, frustration and anger as another set of fire elements heating up emotions, bodies and psyche. Displaced away from home in refugee camps, the Saharawi had to resort to tents to survive the harsh conditions of the Hamada Desert. The tent is a shelter, a home and a social gathering space and an escape from the intense heat outside. Unable to return to a homeland littered with explosives and landmines, the tent still symbolizes a nomadic architecture cooling off frustration, disconnection and imposed settlement. It also refers to the right to return to our homeland and to escape “home of fire”. Home of Fire is a visual journey exploring how the desert is increasingly characterized not only by its hot ecology but also by the politics of violence, militarization technology impacting the human and other-than-human beings in the desert.