These days we rarely hear of Syria outside the context of the latest news coverage of ISIS, the refugee crisis (now the largest in the world), or the destruction of lives, cities, and ancient cultural sites. But despite 40 years of brutal dictatorship, 5 years of revolution-turned-proxy war, and over 200,000 deaths, Syrians continue to exist, survive, resist, and make art. We dedicate this list Syrians across the world. We hear you! And we want the rest of the world to hear you too.
1. Latlateh – Hip Hop, Rap Political hip hop duo Latlateh from Damascus is the creative collaboration of notable Syrian MCs Bu Kolthoum and Watar. Latlateh is inspiring not only for impeccable rhymes but for Bu Kolthoum and Watar’s political lyrics imbued with social critique and rooted in a deep desire for change in their homeland. As Bu Kolthoum stated in a BBC interview, “The situation in Syria is what motivates us to write. How can we sit by and watch all the pain and suffering that is going on around us and not speak out?“
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2. Khebez Dawla - Alternative Rock Khebez Dawla’s song “Ayesh” begins with a heart-wrenching question familiar to many Syrians today: “Are you still alive?” Khebez Dawle’s casual/not casual handling of the heavy question of survival in a state of war paired with their melancholic, earnest and self-aware acoustic rock is an inspiring example of Syrians affirming their aliveness in a context that seeks to destroy them.
Project by Design I/O is a huge interactive installation for children for the New York Hall of Science, featuring an ecosystem of virtual animals to play with:
Connected Worlds is a large scale immersive, interactive ecosystem
developed for the New York Hall of Science. The installation is composed
of six interactive ecosystems spread out across the walls of the Great
Hall, connected together by a 3000 sqft interactive floor and a 45ft
high waterfall. Children can use physical logs to divert water flowing
across the floor from the waterfall into the different environments,
where they can then use their hands to plant seeds. As the different
environments bloom, creatures appear based on the health of the
environment and the type of plants growing in it. If multiple
environments are healthy creatures will migrate between them causing
interesting chain reactions of behaviors.
Connected Worlds is designed to encourage a systems thinking approach to
sustainability where local actions in one environment may have global
consequences. Children work with a fixed amount of water in the system
and have to work together to manage and distribute the water across the
different environments. Clouds return water from the environments to the
waterfall which releases water to the floor when it rains.
In Belarus, my home country, people love when everything looks neat, clean and beautiful. I decided to search for origins of this fact. So I researched the environment where people normally live and I was looking for rather outstanding, and at the same time, very common things, which could influence the esthetic feeling of a person.
This project is about decorating reality. All these paintings on the bus stops are made through local authorities by unknown “artists” with the only purpose to beautify empty landscape. (artist statement)
