fueled by Syrian war
Cultures at Duke University and holds a PhD in
 Arabic Literature from Oxford University.
Of all the Arab Spring countries, Syria has been the
most artistically and culturally prolific. Smartphone videos, feature films, art photography, oil paintings,
watercolors, songs, and theatrical plays have flooded
the Internet over the past four years.
The wall of fear that had crushed the souls of the people under the draconian regimes of
Hafiz and ashar al!Assad has indeed bro"en. #ot only can the name of the president be
mentioned, unthin"able before the revolution bro"e out in $%&&, ashar is consistently ridiculed and even openly attac"ed. The 'ouTube finger puppet series (Top )oon* shows
eeshu +a diminutive nic"name for ashar to be a butcher and a coward. -aricaturists
are having a heyday in this image Am/ad 0ardeh depicts eeshu getting high after an e1plosion as he snorts a no1ious mi1 of crushed bones and building dust.
The only materials to be e1ported from inside Syria, 'ouTube shorts are estimated to number 2%%,%%%. 3ade by professionals and amateurs, they provide an invaluable archive
of the events and atrocities from the beginning of the revolution. 3oreover, they are
 beginning to create a (new audio!visual language that contains techni4ues of immediate
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cinema and eye!witness reports.*& All are powerful, but two are particularly poignant5
(6asmenco* and (Art of Survival.*
0hile 7aceboo" played a vital and well!advertised role in disseminating information and
mobilizing protests, its role in providing a home for artist collectives has not been
ac"nowledged. 7aceboo" hosts countless sites with countless wor"s of art produced inside and outside the country. A treasure trove of oppositional art is (The -reative
3emory of the Syrian 8evolution* site .$ It features hundreds of cartoons, banners,
murals, drawings, graffiti, calligraphy, sculpture, design, stamps, photography, cinema, video, music, theater and radio from $%&&.
The (Syria Art9Syrian Artists* page, opened on $: September $%&$, specifically calls
itself a (3useum;Art )allery.* <espite that apparently e1aggerated comparison with the stone structures of the world=s great capitals, this museum;gallery is everything it
 promises to be. 3oreover, some of the art is for sale. >i"e conventional gallery owners,
the administrators of (Syria Art9Syrian Artists* choose the artists whose wor" interests them, and they invite the artists to contribute some of their wor". The utopian goal, art
 photographer ?haled A"il now in Istanbul said, is to (unite Syrians through art.*2 
In what has come to be an e1pected caveat in Syrian aesthetic pro/ects, the (Syria Art*
site eschews (ideological, ethnic, religious or political beliefs or issues. Our motto5 0e do
neither politics nor religions, we do A8TS.* @uoting ?ahlil )ibran, they write5 (0e live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting*. This desire for political blindness
has become critical at a time when so many new political groups are forming and it is less
and less clear who is an ally, who a friend and who an enemy=s ally. The artist=s party
affiliation does not matter only how a piece of art renders the humanity and pain of the crisis and says #o to the violence whoever the perpetrator.
Surfing the several 7aceboo" pages dedicated to Syrian art, one meets hundreds of artists, the dar" matter of Syria=s current aesthetic production. These pages marry the real to the
virtual by inviting visitors into the artists= studios and to their e1hibitions. ut these pages
do something else that may be as important as the site itself they create communities of visitors who (li"e* the images and the videos. 0ith their names and faces listed ne1t to
the li"ed image they become (friends.* As such, they can discuss the art as though at a
literary salon and they can also, when necessary, intervene on behalf of the e1hibited
artist when she is in trouble, or, on behalf of the page when it is censored.
1 Zahir Amrain & Shad Ilyas “The Incomplete Syrian Cinema” in Zahir  Amrain et al. eds. Suriya tatahaddath: Al-thaqafa wa al-fann min ajl al- hurriya Beirut: Dar al-Sai !"#$% !$ 2See http5;;www.creativememory.org;BcatC&% accessed &D 6une $%&
3 -onversation with ?haled A"il, Istanbul, E September $%&
4 https5;;www.faceboo".com;thesyrianart;info accessed September $%&
 
There are real galleries also. #otably, the <amascus Ayyam )allery that moved operations
to eirut, <ubai, Faris and >ondon after $%&&. The curators have supported the wor" of
Syrian artists by arranging numerous e1hibitions. One of the most!often!displayed artists is Tammam Azzam. He developed a series of digital images made up of &Gth and $%th century
uropean paintings by such masters as ?limt and 3atisse superimposed on found images of 
recently shelled buildings. Than"s to art dealers= promotion of his revolutionary art, his wor"s are now fetching thousands of dollars. He is not alone at a time when art from Arab
Spring countries has ac4uired surplus value and dealers are scrambling to discover new
lucrative art.
In the aftermath of the early euphoria, despite the overwhelming odds against them, artist!
activists continued to create, hoping that their art, fiction, films, testimonials and poetry
might ma"e a difference and help to uproot the oppressive regime of ashar al!Assad. 0hile a few have remained inside, most Syrian artists fled to <ubai, eirut, Istanbul, >ondon and
Faris where they have produced wor"s that bear testimony to their belief that the revolution
is on!going. The regime has arrested many of the artists who stayed. 0ith a war on its hands, it is remar"able that goons are charged with finding and punishing those who dare to
oppose its brutality. ut this reality testifies to the moral authority that still inheres in Syrian
artists= wor".
The tragedy of the Syrian revolution can be read in the numbers5 at least $$%,%%% dead
millions internally displaced people un"nown number of disappeared and about 2 million refugees. >iving in camps in Tur"ey and 6ordan and scattered throughout
>ebanon and ma"ing up a 4uarter of its total population, some of these refugees are
ma"ing art and theater.
At the end of 3arch $%& in 6ordan=s aatari camp, &%% Syrian children performed for
fellow refugees scenes from Sha"espeare, including Kin Lear .E Throughout the chorus
cried out (hypocrite* when the evil sisters lied to their father and (truthful* when -ordelia spo"e. The director, Syrian actor #awwar ulbul, wor"ed with the children for
months, preparing them for this one moment of happiness in the desolation of the
crowded camp. ven if only for a short while, art brought dignity and a measure of agency to Syrians who had lost everything.
Theater, especially ancient )ree" theater, provided women refugees in 6ordan and
>ebanon with a crucial outlet. In the fall of $%&2 in 6ordan $E Syrian refugee women put on uripides= !ro"an #omen. )iving them language!!classical Arabic translation of the
classical )ree"!!with which to e1press the agony of e1ile, the play was a success.
<irector 'asmin 7edda filmed parts of the play and its rehearsals. She interspersed the dramatic scenes with the women telling their stories in their miserable apartments
5 Ben 'u((ard% “Behind Bar(ed )ire: Sha*espeare inspires a cast o+  youn, Syrians” T /# 0arch !"#$% see http:11222.nytimes.com1!"#$1"$1"#12orld1middleeast1(ehind-(ar(ed- 2ire-sha*espeare-inspires-a-cast-o+-youn,-syrians.html3 emc4eta#&5r4"6 7accessed $ 8une !"#$9
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somewhere in Amman. The women seemed astonished at how similar their tragedies
were to those of some )ree" women who had also witnessed the murder of their loved
ones $E%% years earlier. The documentary titled $ueens of %yria&   premiered at the Abu <habi 7ilm 7estival and in October $%&, 7edda won the lac" Fearl Award for best
Arab director. In <ecember $%& in eirut, another group of Syrian refugee women
reimagined another classical )ree" tragedy. They performed Sophocles= Antione about civil war in Thebes to render their own e1periences and their struggle to bury their men.
The story of the cooptation of the Syrian revolution by the Assad regime and then by e1tremist mercenaries is well "nown. 3ost pundits claim that if there was a revolutionary
moment it was brief and now it=s civil war. Artists and intellectuals beg to differ. 0ith
 pens and brushes they have insisted on the importance of naming and representing the
 protests and demonstrations (revolution.* -harif ?iwan, one of the founders of the Abou  #addara documentary film production said, (0e don=t feel we are dealing with a war. 0e
are dealing with a revolution. I don=t "now what revolution is I can=t e1plain what it is,
 but we have the feeling that we are in front of huge brea"downs, ruptures, something very violent and also very beautiful. So, we cannot 4ualify this. 0e accept the idea that it
is a revolution.*D
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