gazesfromsyria.org

During the Arab Spring in 2011, citizens in Syria took to the streets to demand reforms. The regime of Bashar al-Assad responded with a brutal crack-down by security forces. Peaceful opposition turned into an uprising ten years ago, on 15 March 2011, when large demonstrations were held in major cities. In the following years, the uprising slowly developed into a multi-sided civil war, with ever-splintering opposition groups, supported by weapons and money from Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, USA, and Russia. For years, the conflict featured prominently in the Western news media, but by now global interest has faded away.

The International New York Times ran thousands of articles and photographs of the conflict. In just a handful of these photographs, an individual looks directly into the camera as their likeness is captured: demonstrator, opposition fighter, ISIS follower, government soldier, civilian; children, women, men, seeking refuge from the violence. They look into the camera, skeptical, guarded, tired, hopeful, beaten. These people are well aware of the gaze of the camera and its implications. They know that they are to become an image in the Western news media. Nevertheless, their gazes connect us, the news audience in the West, on a very human level with the street in Syria. They bring the war very close. Their gazes remind us to look, to notice. They urge us not to forget the war in Syria and to intervene however possible.

For one year, I pasted 48 posters showing people that have been caught in the war in the public space of Amsterdam, to urge us not to forget the war and to intervene however possible. To mark the end of this year, which is also the end of the project, I hung the whole series at a few selected billboards.

The project was also presented at Noorderlicht Photo Festival 2021 in Groningen and in the exhibition space of the Art History Department of the University of Amsterdam, from 15 March – 8 April 2022.