kickstarter.com, Ammar Abdulhamid:

A digital deconstruction of Delacroix’s famous work “Liberty leading the people” drawing on current tragic developments in Syria.

Hi. My name is Ammar Abdulhamid, and I come from Syria, a small country in the Middle East currently torn by civil strife. I have been a prodemocracy activist since 1998, and the programs which I designed in cooperation with my colleagues were meant to facilitate a nonviolent transition towards democracy, a choice that led me down a treacherous path and eventually paved the way for my exile to Washington D.C. in 2005. In March 2011, I experienced a fleeting moment of redemption when nonviolent protests swept across the country led by many young activists who were part of our network.  

(Further biographical information can be found in this just published profile and interview in The Daily Dot, and this one by The Jüdische Kulturbund Project which contains an old poem and few video clips, as well as on my personal website).

The tragic turnaround and the onset of civil war changed everything. The Syrian conflict has now produced what UN officials describe as the worst humanitarian disaster since WWII. In the face of this, my activism began to feel hollow and words seem to have lost their meaning, even though I actually started my public career as an author and a poet. 

Over the preceding years, I found myself increasingly in need of uncovering other means to express my thoughts and feelings, to shed light on what is taking place in my country, and to help renew that old debate regarding the intimate and intricate relationship between liberty and revolution. For I believe that the absence of this debate contributes significantly to our ongoing confusion as to what can be done, what we need to do in order to ease the suffering of our fellow human beings. 

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