We leave Syria accidentally, I call my friend Ahmad, whom I shared with my studio in 2019. He told me he learnt to play ” Oud” by himself after he settled in Turkey along with his father, he was in Jordan before and they left the country in a legal way.
Ahmad is still the same, his only concern is the painting, almost all the time, and then came a few additions, paper, flutes, Oud…
There is something delicate and very elegantly Syrian surrounding this artist, even the instruments he chose to use imply that. Loneliness also surrounds him, us, once we leave the country.
This is a complaint about the inevitable price we pay either way, whether we stay or leave. this is a complaint that is so close to my heart because it sounds like my country from far away and also from the inside.
The approved annual schedule for power rationing, according to the people’s expectations, is as follows:
During spring and fall: 1-2 hours of power cuts, followed by 3-4 hours of electricity, repeated throughout the day. Sometimes, if the weather’s nice, it gets slightly better.
During winter and summer: As we approach these “virtuous” seasons, the cuts ramp up. The cycle reverses: 4-6 hours without power, with a lucky 1-2 hours of electricity in between. When it’s really cold or hot, expect over 8 hours of cuts, maybe rewarded with one or half an hour of electricity—if you’re lucky.
Of course, blackouts would still happen even during the supposed “electricity hours.” Damascus is the spoiled city, and those were the expectations of its people unless they live in the fanciest neighborhoods.
Two weeks ago my parents told me that the rationing would last for 30 continuous hours in the village, they had half or one hour of electricity in between.
Documentation of a video call with Majd Al-Hinnawi
“The official “Tishreen” newspaper had published a report on July 3, in which it explained that house rents have increased by more than 75% in the capital, Damascus, and recorded record numbers ranging between 200,000 and 300,000 Syrian pounds.
The newspaper said that the majority of homeowners ask the tenant to pay a full year’s rent, and a few ask for six months.” 1 (Enad Baladi newspaper, 2020)
https://www.enabbaladi.net/archives/400255
This case is about an artist who lives in Damascus. She goes to her studio, far enough from her house and the city, she finds out that someone broke in. A small unprotected room on the roof of a building in one of Damascus’ suburbs. Paintings were on the ground, the thieves stole some little things and a bag of friends; tools that have been accompanying the artist since she started painting.
Taya once again returns to the studio to document her long trip there for us but you can only see the roof from the whole video, you can see the gray city from there.
I sink into her short documented memories and mess with the tools on my cellphone to edit this low-quality video, like the rest of them. I sink into her videos and remember all of the studios she rented and her stories about them, then I remember the only studio I rented in 2019, for a year and a half, being there endlessly.
We speak and treat this matter – having a studio- as if it were a house.
To have a studio means having two jobs, one to provide your art, and one to create your art. Yet, imagine doing that in Syria where unemployment rates in the country among the entire adult population reached 50%, while it reached 78% among the youth. That is without getting into the details of the poverty and exploitation of the Syrian art market which barely exists except for a few names. Also without mentioning the prices of materials and the generally very low income.
Above in the quote and the text lies the reason why renting a studio is a hard job for an artist in Syria, and why Taya could not get a secured place. Below, in the video lie memories of a young artist who needs a place to create, otherwise, she has no place in this world.