Artist Diana Al-Hadid was born in Syria and raised in Ohio. The work in her eponymous show, currently at the Mills College Art Museum through March 12, could be understood as drawing a thread between her childhood and her adult life — the Middle East and the Unites States. Most explicit in her “Blind Bust” sculpture, a figurative monument that appears to melt into strands of steel forming a cage, her recent work is also informed by “historical forms from art and architecture” as well as Arabic calligraphy and Islamic textile patterns, according to the curatorial statement. Al-Hadid’s work is being shown alongside Elena Dorfman: Syria’s Lost Generation, an intense collection of portraits and recordings that present a humanistic look into Syrian conflict. Dorfman’s project focuses particularly on exiled Syrian youth in Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon, capturing the uncertainty and longing that pervades their lives.