Yael Eylat Van-Essen PhD – Curator / Researcher

Posters from the Syrian Uprising, shown in MECA, Mana Contemporary art, New-Jersey, New-York.

“Syria a Silent Scream” followed the exhibition “Syrian People know their Way” which was shown earlier that year at HIT’s Research Gallery in Israel. Shown in the United States for the first time, the exhibition presented 250 political posters created digitally by the collective The Syrian People Know Their Way. Operating anonymously both within Syria and beyond its borders to avoid imprisonment and torture, this community of young artists, designers, bloggers and activists use social media to provide a political and theoretical commentary of life on the ground in Syria

Thematically, the works address issues at the forefront of the conflict at the time of the exhibition, including atrocities directed by the al-Assad regime; perspectives on foreign intervention; the role of major international actors including the U.S., Hezbollah, Iran, and Egypt; and opposition to sectarian violence and religious extremism. These materials, challenging decades of Ba’athist control over creative expression, allow viewers to examine the political reality of Syria authentically and unmediated through the perspective of the strugglers, rather than learning about the conflict through Western norms and points of view. Published in an archival format, the exhibition documented the protest movement and made it accessible for generations to come.

Co-curated with Tyler Waywell