Yael Eylat Van-Essen PhD – Curator / Researcher

The Exhibition “Syrian People Know Their Way” presented poster and short films of the Syrian Uprising, created between 2011-2013 by a group of Syrian Resistance activists.

The group of artists, who were struggling for their country’s freedom, endeavored to arouse public opinion in Syria and abroad to their cause. Their posters and short films reflect the horrible tragedy of the Syrian people, whose nonviolent protest in the first stages of the uprising, has led to a bleeding civil war.

The exhibition examined the political circumstances in Syria not from the democratic and liberal viewpoint of the hegemonic West, but as it was presented by the protesters themselves. Their works reflect a polyphonic discourse in which the political framework dissolves to its components and regresses to pre-state condition. They reveal, lay bare and expose implicit and explicit ideologies of the Syrian resistance movements, and show how the use of digital media creates a new form of propaganda, distributing un-uniform, de-centered, fluid and multi-signifying messages. This Exhibition, more than wishing to clarify the situation in Syria, casts an ironic look at the blind spots of the West regarding Syria.

In the center of the Research Gallery space stood a large scale table which was designed as an audio-visual object: a beam of blue light emanating from within, lending it a sense of a floating signifier, and a Syrian song of protest played in a loop. On the table were laid six voluminous books, whose covers presented the Syrian National Flag colors, in which some 200 posters were printed, with Hebrew translation of their text. The exhibition also included short films created by Syrian protesters, projected on semi transparent screens hanging from the ceiling, bitterly criticizing the present situation in Syria.