“Syria`s Art of Resistance”

EXHIBITION and SYMPOSIUM
21 March 2013 at the Round Tower, Copenhagen
“Syria’s Art of Resistance”
– Continuing Traditions of Satire, Art and the Struggle for Freedom
Public Nausea by Yasmine Fanari
Experience how the leading Syrian artists and cultural activists are using creative
means to express their anger, frustrations and protests against the authoritarian
regime and mobilise broad popular support in the struggle for freedom and change.
EXHIBITION
“Syria’s Art of Resistance”
Round Tower, Copenhagen 21. March – 12. May
The exhibition will display the works of some of the leading and most innovative artists and creative activists
in the Syrian uprising. It is curated by Malu Halasa, Aram Tahhan, Leen Zyiad and Donatella della Ratta, and
designed by Sidsel Becker in cooperation with the crew at the Round Tower. The artists and their work will
be presented in a separate catalogue – here is a short text profile of the artists:
Cartoons by Ali Ferzat
One of the most prominent satirical cartoonists in the Arab world and an iconic feature of the Syrian
revolution. He uses his pen against Assads sword and was attacked by the regime militia who broke his
hands to prevent him from drawing. Ali Ferzat received the Sakharov price for freedom of thought in 2011.
After being attacked, Ali Ferzat left Damascus last year with only a handful of scans of his 20,000 cartoons.
As the Culture in Defiance (CID) exhibition was being made for the Prince Claus Fund (PCF) in Amsterdam in
May 2012, it was both dangerous and impossible for his assistant to go to his office in Damascus and pick up
high res scans of Ferzat’s cartoons. So CID went to a source that no one has used before, Ferzat’s publisher,
Scott C. Davis in Seattle, and he made available high resolution scans that none of Ali Ferzat’s exhibitions in
the West have had access to. CID is the first exhibition to show such a wide range of the cartoonist’s work
that has been reproduced A2 size.
Cartoon strips by Comic4Syria
Syria has always had a strong tradition of highly metaphorical editorial cartoons in its heavily censored press.
In July, a new generation of graphic designers and animators, some with backgrounds in children’s books
illustration and story boarding movies, have been posting their responses to the country’s turmoil on the
new Facebook page Comic4Syria.
The Round Tower will be the first exhibition in the world to feature Comic4Syria.
Comic4Syria: Bashar-al Assad tickles the dragon of sectarianism – and it swallows him whole.
Ink drawings by Khalil Younes
Through his pen and ink drawings Khalil Younes hopes to address the main themes of the Syrian uprising –
and in the series “The revolution 2011”, to bestow a record that future generations can appreciate. Younes
brightly coloured, emotionally searing portraits of some of the key figures of the uprising have been
prolifically reproduced over the internet. They include such people as Hamza Bakkour, a child who had his
jaw blown off during the intense shelling of Homs, and Qashoush, the popular singer from Hama who was
brutally murdered.
Drawings by Khalil Younes
Puppet theatre by Masasit Mati
Many of the artists in the exhibition are anonymous for the obvious reasons. There have been retaliations on
people who are critical of the regime and their families are endangered. Perhaps the most prominent group
of artists working undercover is Masasit Mati, the Syrian group behind the cyber puppet play Top Goon:
Diaries of a Little Dictator. They include Syrian actors, filmmakers, journalists, and set and costume
designers. Below is the text from the context board that accompanied the screen showing Top Goon in the
CID exhibition in Amsterdam: “The anonymous Syrian artists’ group Masasit Mati uses finger puppets in Top
Goon: Diaries of a Little Dictator because they are easy to smuggle through checkpoints. Their first thirteen
episodes, broadcast once a week last year, amassed audiences up to half a million on YouTube, Vimeo and
Facebook. Steeped in the culture of Internet self-reliance, nine people do everything, from scriptwriting and
costume design to directing, filming and editing. They raised funds for their second series with a Kickstarter
campaign and grants from cultural NGOs. Lauded for their wittiness and high production values, Top Goon
won a human rights film award in Cairo.”
Top Goon: Diaries of a Little dictator
Artists collective: Art and Freedom
While many people have been working under pseudonyms, the artists’ collective Art and Freedom, under
the guidance of the veteran Syrian artist Youssef Abdelki, in Syria, have posted an influential Facebook page,
which features work of Syrian artists. To paraphrase the article published in the CID exhibition publication
about Art and Freedom – by Amer Mattar, a Syrian journalist at Al Hayat who was arrested during the
protests and then released: all the work has been signed in solidarity with the protestors, the people who
have been imprisoned and each and every one of the victims.
Abdelki, an older, very well regarded artist in the country, has opened up Art and Freedom to art from across
the board – from traditional to new forms like animation and graphic design (a breakthrough of the
traditional elitism and regime control of the fine arts) to artists young and old. It remains difficult to find a
biography of Abdelki on the Internet, but in an interview about the Contemporary Practices journal ‘Arab Art
in a Changing World’, in which he is the main speaker, gives an idea of the breadth of his vision, see link:
http://www.contemporarypractices.net/essays/volumeVIII/arabartinachangingworld.pdf
He discusses that the burden of art in “Third World countries” is that it is imbued with identity. In these
places, art cannot be art for art’s sake. Now within the very particular context of today’s Syria, it is
incumbent upon art to address the political.
Other artists participating in Art and Freedom include:
- Animator Yasmeen Fanari, born in 1981, in Damascus, also contributes an animated short film “ABC
Doublespeak” to a collection of Artists’ film in the exhibition. Fanari was a Said Foundation and Chevening
Scholar in Damascus. Another of her films were awarded a 2009 Grant for Young Talents at the Damascus
Capital of Culture festival. As a freelance animator her client list included before the revolution UNICEF Syria
and MBC Dubai.
- Artist and graphic designer Yaser al-Safi was born in 1976 in Al Qamashli, Syria. Yaser attained his Bachelors
in Fine Arts a Diploma of superior studies in Graphic from Damascus University. He was awarded many prizes
such as the Honour prize at the Cervantes Center, Damascus, Syria; the first Graphic Award Winner at the
second Syrian Youth Exhibition, Syria and the second graphic Award Winner, Biennale Latakia, Syria.
Poster by Yasmeen Fanari
Poster by Yaser al-Safi
- Edward Shahda, born in 1952, grew up in Hama, studied fine art in Damascus where he studied, according
to Syria Today, Christian icons and Islamic miniatures derived from the 13th-century Baghdad school of
manuscript illustration. He was fascinated to discover that while the miniatures were an Islamic art form and
the icons were Christian, they incorporated the same decorative elements and essentially displayed the
same vision.
- Randa Maddah, a Syrian artist from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, who was included in a group show
of Golan artists at Birzeit University on the West Bank.
Artists’ Cinema, various artists
In the streets of the Arab Spring, the tough conditions under which protestors film tend to produce grainy,
fast-paced films usually broadcast over the internet or by the Arab news channels. Their defining
characteristics – low resolution because they have been shot on a mobile phone, shaky footage (due to body
movement), and light and sound complications – have produced a cinematic language that has infiltrated the
new wave of art films from the Syrian uprising. Collage mixed with documentary or simple stop-frame
animation has produced a low-fi but effective aesthetic as seen in some of these pointedly engaged films and
animations that the mass demonstrations and ongoing suffering of the Syrian people inspired.
Three new films by Khaled Abdulwahed and Philip Horani alongside the inspiration cell-phone cinema
Kafarsouseh, are new additions from the PCF exhibition.
Khalil Younes: His film Syria is an uncomfortable short film about the sewing of skin, which is metaphorical
about national self-harm. See link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKT_Rl8cXZM
Syria accompanies his completed until now printed series Revolution 2011, another new addition to the
Copenhagen exhibition.
Danny Abo Louh & Muhamad Omran. Video Conte de printempts By La Chaise Renversee see
http://vimeo.com/30585735. A short evocative movie, with drawn figures that stand up and are flattened
by a giant foot, followed by demonstration footage, all to an evocative piano soundtrack, length 4.55
minutes
Khaled Abdulwahed: Video.
Tuj http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl6wyjqj1V0
Another of Abdulwahed’s Syrian “short stories” features the bouncing of a ball by an unseen hand, in an
apartment hallway. The artist and dirctor writes: “What dazzled me the most during my stay in Syria
were the children … You see them all over [the] streets, playing soccer, passing balls to each others while
bombing and shelling … fill the air …
[It is a] surrealistic scene, where the sounds of balls and bombs, life
and death, intermingle. For an instant, a child appeared to me, playing with his ball, [during] the shelling,
all alone, in his house. This child keeps on playing, inside our heads.”
Yasmeen Fanari: Video: ABCdoublespeak uses words readily used by the media in describing
the situation in Syria and creates a new lexicon for child’s play, 3.21 minutes, see link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTbgXSNyJeU
Philippe Horani: If the identity of this Anonymous artist can be found, then his work too
should accompany his video “Liberté” premiered in “Le Jasmin l’emportera” Festival in
Paris 2011. The film is animated brushstrokes, 2.29 minutes in length, and available
from this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggYfpRez5XI
Kafarsouseh
produced by Kayani for Audio Visual Arts in cooperation with Al Share’ Media, 2012 (1.28)
In Damascus, protestors from the district of Kafarsouseh demonstrate in a public space that they have had to
recapture from the Syrian regime every day. At night, people come out and celebrate. This film was shot
right before the army invaded again and finally destroyed the district.
Tuj by Abdulwahed, Liberté by Philippe Horani and Kafarsouseh are all new artists’ film additions to the PCF
exhibition.
Engaged Artists
While there has been a breakdown on many levels between different factions inside Syria, among the
creative community, particularly the visual arts, there has been a blossoming of expression and contact
among young and established artists. No matter their generation, these artists have been responding to the
uprising in a variety of ways – through painting, collage, graffiti, and filmmaking. Some communicate their
political views directly; others prefer an entirely aesthetic response. In the printed artwork for Syria’s Art of
Resistance, they convey their innermost hopes, desires and the events of the past two years, which have
moved them.
All of these printed artworks listed below are new additions to the PCF exhibition.
Sulafa Hijazi
(b. 1977, Damascus, Syria)
A visual artist and filmmaker, Sulafa Hijazi studied at the Adham Ismail Centre for Fine Arts and the Higher
Institute of Dramatic Arts in Syria, where she majored in drama. In addition to her work as a designer and
illustrator, Hijazi writes and directs animated films for media and art projects with a particular focus on
children’s education and social development. Hijazi received more than twelve awards for her animation
feature The Jasmine Birds.
Wissam Al Jazairy
(b. 1990, Damascus, Syria)
After the revolution began in 2011, Wissam Al Jazairy who studied graphic design in Bulgaria immediately
began publishing manifestos and disseminating engaged artwork. His witty online posters and graffiti, which
borrow from a wide range of artistic sources, including the British street artist Banksy, all have been given a
Syrian twist that contributes to the distinct visual identity of the uprising. As an artist, he participated in
several exhibitions in Germany and Egypt. His most recent, “The Dignity of a Human Being”, was at the Royal
Cultural Centre in Amman, Jordan.
Khaled Barakeh
(b. 1976, Damascus, Syria)
“Originally trained as a painter, Khaled Barakeh works with current and pertinent issues revolving around
politics, identity, cultural and historical matters as well as power structures,” writes Anna Krokh, in 2010.
Barakeh, a graduate from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Damascus University, holds an MA from Funen Art
Academy in Denmark. Presently, he is studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Frankfurt am Main, in
Germany. His work eschews political statement and propaganda and has been exhibited in Syria and widely
throughout Europe.
Ibrahim Jalal
(b. 1947, Kafr Nabl, Syria)
Syrian artist Ibrahim Jalal graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Damascus, in 1973, and
the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, in Paris in 1978. He said, “To paint is an act of transmission …
It is also the expression of my inner music … [and] inner questioning. It is repeated meditation, [a] permanent
return to oneself, in order to restore balance, harmony, and reach [an] inner source … My paintings are my
joy and my sadness, my memories and my dreams, my laughter and my tears, my serenity and my pain.”
Lens Young Photographic Collectives in Syria (Anonymous)
Across the country, unofficial groups of citizen photographers have been documenting the destruction, and
posting their findings on Facebook and YouTube. Collectively under the banner of “Lens Young” followed by
the name of their city or a derivation there of, Lens Young Homsi, Lens Young Dimashqi (‘Damascus’) and
Lens Young Idlib are among the countless groups of young men and women, some of them teenagers, who
use whatever photographic equipment at hand – from mobile phones to 35mm cameras. While much of
their work has been straightforward journalism, some images capture the ethereal if not disturbing beauty
of today’s Syria.
Untitled by Ziad Homsi
Unititled by Abed Elmoemen Kbrite
Challenging Official Propaganda
Political Posters by Alshaab Alsori Aref Tarekh, poster artists collective from around Syria, and
photojournalism by Muzaffar Salman
Other than the actual violence on the streets, there has been another battle, as real as what’s taking place
physically, between the propaganda of the Ba’ath Party, which has characterized the past fifty years of Assad
control, and the new imagery, ideas and mottoes and banners belonging to the opponents of the regime.
This war of ideas played out on the streets and in cyber space. Syrian photographers working for the
international news agencies capture the mood of a country in crisis and challenge the regime on the
frontline of public space.
Alshaab Alsori Aref Tarekh (‘The Syrian People Know Their Way’) is a poster collective that includes as its
members, initially a fine art student from Damascus and the calligrapher from Meah, in the countryside
outside of Hama. They had been making posters for the Arab Spring protests in Tunisia and Egypt. However
when the demonstrations began at home, they were soon joined by Syrians around the world, including a
philosopher and a businessman, who have been working on framing and “reading” the revolution. They have
also been making posters more affordable for activists on the run and reduced poster colours so as not to
incur costs in colour printing for the posters that have been available from print-on-demand websites like
Flickr.
Muzaffar Salman is a photojournalist currently working in Syria. His photographs for Reuters and AP have
been published in the New York Times, Time magazine and Atlantic Monthly, among other international
publications. Former head of photography for the Syrian daily newspaper Al Watan, Salman is also an artist.
In 2006 he won the first award in the “Crossing Glances” competition for photography in Rome and his
photographs were featured in the following collective exhibition in 2006-2007 in Rome, Brussels and most
Mediterranean countries (Syria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunis, Algeria, Turkey). In 2010 he held an individual
exhibition (“Punctum”) at the Goethe Institute in Damascus and was awarded the “al-Mawred al-Thaqafi”
grant to publish his book of photographs My Fingers Cannot Help but Refer to Butterflies.
The featured work of Muzaffar Salman is a completely new addition to the PCF exhibition.
A selection of photojournalism by Muzaffar Salman/Reuters
Graffiti
The Syrian revolution was started when fifteen school boys, ranging in age from ten to 5, pray painted on a
wall a phrase used in the revolutions of Tunisia and Egypt – “Al-shaab yurid isqat al- nizam” (‘the people
want to bring down the regime’). Outrage over the boys’ arrest and subsequent torture led to mass protests
in Dera’a, which spread across Syria. As a consequence, spray painting has become a dangerous activity in
that country. To honour fallen street artists, such as Spray Man Nour Hatem Zahra, who was killed by the
security forces, the activists’ campaign freedom Graffiti Week Syria took place in April, in streets from
Damascus, Homs and Qamishli to Cairo, Beirut and San Francisco. Even photographing graffiti inside Syria
can be life threatening. In neighbouring Lebanon, another war of the walls is being played out between
revolution supporters and pro regime political parties…’ By showing these stencils and graffiti, in a variety of
ways, the exhibition is directly tied into the iconography on the streets of Syria right now.
Cartoons
The people’s street art from Deir El-Zour and Kafranbl
As the protest movement spread across the country, unique forms of creative expression have taken root in
dissident Syria. Kafranbl, a previously unheard of hamlet in northern Syria, has become one of the centres
for witty, symbolic protest. Local, anonymous cartoonists, illustrators and graphic designers have attained
international acclaim for their colourful cartoons and immaculately produced protest banners and signs. In
photographs, the cartoon or sign is always held up by ordinary citizens to suggest that Kafranbl takes
responsibility for the political sentiments being expressed. This also reveals a lively communal creative
process: a committee of citizens, including a Shakespeare expert, decides on topics and themes and works
closely with local artists. Other places in the country have also been writing and creating immediately
recognisable visual styles, such as the distinctive signage produced in Deir El-Zour, the sixth largest city in
eastern Syria. Their ‘Freedom Cards’ parody official ID cards that every Syrian must at all times carry.
Music:
The exhibition also includes the popular songs of the revolution because the medium of song has been
incredibly influential in terms of the uprising. Nonviolence is being stressed through songs that are not only
witty in terms of their lyrics and scope but they draw on traditional musical forms – the Aleppan maqam as
well as popular – shaabi – songs. This adds another dimension to the framing of the Syrian uprising in the
exhibition and includes Nos Tofaha (Half Apple) also featured in Top Goon: Diaries of a Little Dictator; and
the singer Shadi Ali from the Arab rock band Gene. Among the country’s unlikely hit parade are music
activists who have been killed for inspiring the people: the activist Mohamad Abdelhamed remade a 200
year-old-song into a revolutionary anthem, while the fireman and poet Qashoush will always be
remembered for his rousing song calling for Bashar to step down. Even the Syrian football goalkeeper Abdul
Baset Al-Sarout, a rebel leader in Homs, contributes a track, while rappers Monma, Al Raas, and Saied
Darwish explore a highly sensitive issue concerning the fate of young Syrian women in the refugee camps.
Wall of words
The purpose of the entire exhibition is to give voice to the Syrian people, a voice that has for the most part
been denied to them by their own government, international politicians and the way in which the conflict is
reported by the global media. This final section of the exhibition goes to the people themselves with quotes
from a variety of people including: Yara Bader, a journalist and former political prisoner who is the daughter
and the wife of political prisoners, who discusses what prison as taught her – patience and the ability to use
her anger to get herself up in the morning and face another trying day. Or there is the last word and
testimony from Facebook by Jaber al-Fatwa and what he wanted for his country as a young Muslim man: a
simple life, a family and children and to live in a free Syria. He died under torture.
Wall of Words also includes poet Nizar Qabbani and
novelists Khaled Khalifa, Rafik Schami and Nihad Sirees.
However it is the people who are unknown, the faceless
chants of the revolution, alongside the scores of
anonymous artists, writers, animators, theatre
practitioners, puppeteers, filmmakers – the list is endless
– who are willing to risk their lives, which gives the
impression of the unmistakable courage of a people, who
are not really known in the wider world and who are
facing down a brutal dictatorship.
The Mapping Creating Dissent in Syria from Amsterdam
will be the map showing Syria’s Art of Resistance in the Round Tower, in Copenhagen.