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SYRIA: 2 A SILENCED SCREAM The exhibition Syria: A Silenced Scream documents the diversity of revolutionary art coming out of Syria since the beginning of protests against the regime of President Bashar al-assad. Shown in the United States for the first time, the exhibition is organized around key themes that have emerged from the multitude of political posters published online from 2011 to the present. Syria: A Silenced Scream is brought together in a series of six volumes that provide insights into these ongoing struggles in Syria. Each volume communicates these struggles authentically and unmediated, accompanied only by a brief introductory text and translation. Books 1 and 2 contain a representative collection of posters from the anonymous collective The Syrian People Know Their Way. Book 3 reflects concerns with the conflict s international dimension, more specifically with the threat of foreign intervention, with regional and international actors, as well as with solidarity with protest movements in other states. Book 4 gathers works dealing with non-violence, that is, with anti-sectarian pleas, with civil disobedience, and with calls for a civil (non-religious) state and society. Book 5 contains a call to solidarity, emphasizing individuals who have been either killed or arrested, as well as labor movements, students, and Syria s Kurdish minority. Book 6 unites works that are characterized by their typography that is mostly calligraphic in nature. Mana Contemporary s Middle East Center for the Arts (MECA) was introduced to The Syrian People Know Their Way by the Master s Program in Integrated Design at the Holon Institute of Technology and greatly benefited from its Spring 2013 exhibition The Syrian People Know Their Way, curated by Yael Eylat Van-Essen. We are grateful to Yael, as well as Dana Arieli-Horowitz, Dror K. Levy, and Reuven Givati for their generous assistance in making this exhibition possible. 3
II الشعب السوري عارف طريقه ٢ Cultural scholar Donatella Della Ratta offers a nuanced perspective on this debate. In her essay Peer-Creativity and User-Generated Contents: Towards Active Citizenship in Syria, she argues that while cultural dissent existed under the Al-Assad regime, the digital content that has emerged since the beginning of revolution is enjoy[ing] a new relationship with creativity that is also a new relationship with power and authority. According to Della Ratta, commissioned criticism was engineered and tolerated under the regime. However, revolutionary user-generated content has established a non-mediated, direct dialogue between citizens. In other words, cultural dissent has been de-regulated, taken out of the hands of the regime and placed in the hands of Syria s citizens. Amid the optimism of the Arab Spring, a new generation of artists and graphic designers has emerged in Syria. Producing powerful, clever imagery, they utilize new technology and social media platforms to engage in cultural rebellion outside state channels, challenging decades of government control over creative expression. Among the groups at the forefront of this movement is the anonymous collective The Syrian People Know Their Way. A community of designers, bloggers, and activists working within and outside of Syria, since February 2011 The Syrian People Know Their Way has produced over two hundred striking political posters challenging the regime of President Bashar al-assad. Like many of their fellow activists, they operate in anonymity. Working under the name of the collective shields its members from government security forces, but also reflects the group s creative process. Posters emerge through online collaboration before being posted to Internet platforms such as Facebook and Flickr. Some commentators have questioned the value of revolutionary art in Syria. One critique centers on whether such art is truly revolutionary given the many examples of cultural dissent allowed under the al-assad regime before 2011. Others ask whether online art has any impact in Syria amidst the bloodshed and violence of the conflict. Indeed, in their statement to Ars Electronica, The Syrian People Know Their Way describe their mission as find[ing] a different way of transferring the news to and from the people, using all the available methods of media and working with activists on the ground, aiming to provide a political and theoretical view about daily events in Syria. The Syrian People Know Their Way is engaged in a continuous dialogue with opponents of the regime. The works are inspired from immediate slogans and events, quickly produced and disseminated, and are then printed, posted, and carried in protests. This collective, other revolutionary groups, and individual artists certainly provide a particular point of view of the conflict in Syria. However, at a time when an intervention by the United States in the conflict becomes increasingly likely, perhaps the greatest value of these works for an American audience is that they allow a direct perspective from the viewpoint of activists. This stands in at times stark contrast to learning about the conflict from a Western point of view. As The Syrian People Know Their Way state, we wanted to focus more on the human side of the revolution, the people, the Syrians, and wanted to provide the revolution with art that would be noticed and communicate the Syrian face to the world. TYLER WAYWELL 5
THE SYRIAN PEOPLE KNOW TH... 7
THE OPINION AND THE OTHER OPINION (The name of a political talk show on Al Jazeera) 9
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PREPARE TO RESIST 13
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I AM SYRIAN I AM A SYRIAN KURD NAME: FREEDOM ORIGIN: FREE CITIZEN LOVING LIFE FREEDOM, DEMOCRACY, JUSTICE, EQUALITY, DIGNITY NO TO DETENTION AND TORTURE FATHER S NAME: MARTYR MOTHER S NAME: MARTYR PLACE AND DATE OF BIRTH: TUESDAY 15 MARCH 2011 FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION A REBEL AGAINST TYRANTS A REBEL IN THE FACE OF OPPRESSION ON THIS EARTH THERE IS SOMETHING WORTH LIVING FOR AGAINST SECTARIANISM MY REVOLUTION: NON-VIOLENT I AM FREE I AM A SYRIAN ARAB FREEDOM OF THE OTHER IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF FREEDOM OF THE SELF DIGNITY LONG LIVE FREE SYRIA 17
STOP THE KILLING WE WANT TO BUILD A COUNTRY FOR ALL SYRIANS 19
SYRIA GOLAN DAMASCUS 21
REVOLUTION UNTIL THE OVERTHROW OF THE REGIME 23
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THE REGIME IS A DISINTEGRATING CORPSE SO BURY IT AND ITS DISEASES WITH IT 27
YOUR NOMINEE TO EXTERMINATE FREEDOM 29
GOING OUT TO PROTEST 31
LEAVE 33
THE ALEPPO ARMED GANG MORALS KNOWLEDGE CULTURE ART 35
WE ARE ALL (Written repeatedly in the images of the faces) BABA AMR 37
NO FEAR AFTER TODAY 39
A LITTLE GIRL FELL ASLEEP AND WOKE UP A CAUSE (From a famous song) 41
REVOLUTION UNTIL VICTORY WE WILL NOT RETREAT WE WILL NOT DESPAIR WE WILL NOT TIRE 43
OUR GLORIOUS OPPOSITION I WANT TO BREAK CHAIRS OVER YOUR HEAD IF YOU DON T AGREE WITH ONE ANOTHER 45
JUMP THE REGIME S SHIP IS SINKING 47
DOES IT NEED MUCH BRAIN TO FIGURE OUT, MAN? THE MORE YOU USE OUR FUEL OIL TO FILL UP TANKS, WE WILL USE ELECTRICITY TO GET WARM. WE WON T PAY, LET MAHER (al-assad) PAY THE BILL 49
LEAVE OUR FUTURE 51
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WE SHALL NOT KNEEL TO ANYONE WITHOUT EXCEPTION 55
RE-STATE-ING (A pun, sounds like the word for recycling, but with the word for state/nation-state ) IF IT DOESN T WORK OUT THIS FRIDAY, WE LL DO IT AGAIN NEXT FRIDAY (Friday is both the traditional day of prayer and day of protest) 57
THERE IS NO HUMAN EXCESSIVE IN HIS NON-HUMANNESS 59
WE SHALL REMAIN IN THE OLIVE TREES GREEN THE BREATH OF REVOLUTION BELONGS TO THE CHILDREN OF KARM AL-ZAITUN (Neighborhood in the city of Homs) 61
THE LAW OF THE SHABIH (Shabih - apparitions, armed gangs loyal to the al-assad regime) 63
THE PEOPLE WANT TO TOPPLE THE REGIME (Repeated) 65
MY REVOLUTION MAY YOU BE MY HOMELAND FOR ME 67
THE REVOLUTION CONTINUES (Surrounded by names of cities and towns that saw unrest in the first year of the revolution) 69
WHAT KIND OF HOLIDAY IS IT WHEN EVERY DAY THERE IS ANOTHER MARTYR? 71
WHAT KIND OF HOLIDAY IS IT WHEN EVERY DAY THERE IS ANOTHER MARTYR? 73
WE DO NOT WANT TO LIVE MUCH FOR ANY ONE THING, BUT RATHER TO RESPECT THE RESURRECTION AFTER THIS DEATH 75
REVOLT TO BECOME HEALTHY (Alteration of a common Ramadan phrase: Fast to become healthy ) 77
NO DIALOGUE WITH THE EXECUTIONER BUT RATHER WITH HIS PROSECUTOR 79
PERSEVERING DEATH RATHER THAN HUMILIATION 81
WATANA: TO RESIDE, TO SETTLE IN: TO SETTLE IN A PLACE WATAN: HOMELAND, A PERSON S HOME RESIDENCE MUWAATIN: CITIZEN, HE WHO WAS RAISED WITH YOU IN A HOMELAND OR HE WHO LIVES WITH YOU IN IT. MUWAATANA: PATRIOTISM (Taken from a dictionary. In Arabic all words have a linguistic root. In this case, the words to reside, homeland, citizen, and patriotism all share the root W T N.) 83
BABA AMR 85
Syria: A Silenced Scream September December 2013 Middle East Center for the Arts (MECA) at Mana Contemporary In collaboration with the Research Gallery, Master s Program in Integrated Design, Holon Institute of Technology Curated by TYLER WAYWELL YAEL EYLAT VAN-ESSEN Designed by YELIZ SECERLI Translations by RICHARD COZZENS Edited by SELENA RICKS HEIKO STOIBER Printed at DREW & ROGERS Thanks to: DANA ARIELI-HOROWITZ, REUVEN GIVATI, EUGENE LEMAY, DROR K. LEVY MECA The texts and translations in this book may not be used or reproduced without written permission from the authors, except in the context of reviews. The Middle East Center for the Arts (MECA), Mana Contemporary, and the Holon Institute for Technology make no copyright claims on the images in this book, which are reproduced from the following sources: The Flickr PhotoStream of 3aref 6ari2o, 2011-2012 www.flickr.com/photos/3aref/, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. The Facebook page of الشعب السوري عارف طريقه (The Syrian People Know Their Way), www.facebook.com/syrian. Intifada If proper acknowledgement has not been made, we ask copyright holders to contact Mana Contemporary. 87