Art is a silent wave inside every human soul—an interview with Ayham Jabr
Ayham Jabr, Surreal Collage Artist, a Video Editor, a Videographer and a Graphic Designer from Syria based in Damascus, shares his thoughts on Art for the EWANA Center for Cultural Understanding – interview conducted through email, original text in Arabic.
Could you first tell us about yourself, your art, what art means to you?
First of all, I want to thank you for this interview and extend my greetings to the members of the EWANA Center and to the readers of these lines.
Briefly about myself: I am Ayham Jabr. I’m from the Syria of the past and the Syria of the present. I come from a long-standing artistic family in the fields of television and Arab drama.
My main field of work is advertising design, photography, videography, and montage (visual editing). Therefore, collage art, for me, is an expressive search or an expressive artistic attempt.
Some of my art works can have, as we say, a random meaning, but many works talk about an idea, concept, fantasy, or even a rebellion against reality, such as the “Practising Awakening” project, which is dedicated to the artist Coles Phillips, “Genesis 27-1,” and “Damascus Under Siege” and “Rajaz – Bedouin Imagination”.
I believe that art is that silent wave inside every human soul that begins to vibrate with an active action.
Take the Brazilian football player Ronaldinho. Just watching him manipulate the ball between his feet on the field, you will feel that wave inside you. The poet Nizar Qabbani, with his vocabulary and words alone. The writer Saadallah Wannous.
Art is not limited to music and painting.
As an artist living in Damascus, Syria, what a day in your life looks like?
Those who live inside Syria now, in the year 2023, are struggling to continue living. And I am no different from everyone else, even if my work is in art. There is the economic inflation that is exhausting the people and the state, there is the inhumane Western economic blockade imposed on the people, the misgovernance, and the unfortunate events that occur every day in our Arab region, such as our brothers in occupied Palestine, and the unfortunate events that are happening now in the Gaza Strip by the occupier.
All of these occurrences and many more inevitably affect our lives. I do not think that my love for playing the guitar, my daily attempts to finish a script for a movie or drama, or my addiction to reading and watching movies and series are interesting things for the reader. There are innocent people being bombed every hour of every day somewhere. Something must be done to stop all this madness.
Ayham Jabr's collages
You have made an impressive collection of artwork with titles such as “Damascus under siege” to “The harmony of life” and “Retrospective dream”. Some of your collages give an eerie sense of dystopia, while others seem to express joy and hope. Some seem to depict mundane occurrences which become special in their surreal settings, while others link the surreal of the imagination to the surreal of war and destruction.
How did you come to choose the technique of collage to make art?
It was in 2016, as I remember, when the proxy civil war was at its worst, especially in the areas near where I lived with my family. My home quarantine started from the evening until dawn the next day. Bombing by extremists was answered by bombing by the Syrian army, and we were in the middle.
Staying at home for long periods of time was an incentive to try to occupy myself with something other than the war. College technique was a convenient choice, especially since I own many copies of National Geographic magazines, some of which date back to the 1970s.
Many of your collages bring the worldy to outer space, and outer space to the world. Could you share something of the story you are telling by combining these two worlds, the outer and the worldly?
That’s right, there is always something happening either on Earth, in space, or both. This contemplation of the universe and its magic to the human eye has been around forever, but unfortunately here it has no meaning. I am not saying here that it is an unimportant topic, on the contrary, it is important for intellectual and cognitive progress.
In your collages, you also combine cultural references and scenes from the West Asian world, Syria in specific, with references to other parts of the world, such as Africa and the West. Could you tell us more about combining these different cultural references?
It is changing from ‘looking up’ to looking horizontally. I hope one day to test my DNA. I want to know how many races I belong to. We are all related in one way or another.
Ayham Jabr's movies
You have made several movies, among them are: “The Vessel“, “Etaar“, and “The Poet and the Swan“, and “The Infection“. This last movie was nominated for two awards.
How did you come to make movies and what is it like to make movies in Damascus?
I believe that this is my goal and passion in life, creating the idea, and editing what I wrote and photographed.
When I decided to try to combine the professional fields I specialise in, including photography, editing, and visual design, the only expertise I lacked was writing texts, as my means of expression were more visual than written or using letters.
Therefore, I thank the Internet for containing a huge number of Creative Writing books that are impossible to obtain in paper form. That’s how the story began.
Making art in Syria is generally more of an individual act than an institutional one, and I think this is the right and natural thing, all art… is art.
I am not here to evaluate, because art cannot be evaluated. And because we are a people very open to the world, we have a rich diversity of art and artists.
Much of your movies take place in the confined space of a room. How do you see the role of space/ place in your movies?
The main reason for choosing the most difficult means of dramatic expression, meaning in one space or room, is of course the financial work budget, which in one way or another any text writer is forced to adhere to.
I want to tell you about a story, which is a true story that happened in Damascus, about a woman who collected the garbage that piled up near her house and brought it back to her house. She was committed to this act for years, even after her house burned down because of the nylon bags and other unknown things. This woman inspired me to write a movie about her called “The Aftermaths”. This story, in all its aspects, also takes place within the walls of a single woman’s house.
“The Poet and the Swan” is a surreal, dream-like film set in a post-Black Revolution world in which thinking and feeling are forbidden. The film makes the viewer think about the relationship between reality and imagination. And in your movie “The Vessel“, we see a handcraft artist making wooden sculptures, while we hear different artists speaking in the background among other things about what it means to be an artist.
What do you see as the role of an artist and what it means to be an artist?
I believe that the role of the artist is to transform anything he or she does from something ordinary into a pleasure for the eye of the beholder, regardless of his or her profession or the work they do. Therefore, art happens in all professions, even engineering. Take the engineer and artist Zaha Hadid, for example.
Your short movie “Etaar” starts with the following sentence:
Being able to see things through many frames,
gives you a broader perspective and ability to understand more of how others think.
There are many viewpoints, many of which are valid and legitimate…
Can you elaborate on this thought?
Would I be rude if I said that I also see the freedom fighter Che Guevara as an armed terrorist mercenary? Both frames are correct. Of course I do not mean to insult Che fans, but seeing things through many frames without a doubt gives us a broader perspective.
Do you think art has a role to play in cultivating cultural understanding between people from different cultures and countries?
Let’s talk about the Turkish dramas which are dubbed into the Syriandialect. Has it addressed the crisis that Syria is experiencing? Or were the Turkish people able to change their government’s policy towards Syria? Türkiye is a major reason for the outbreak and continuation of the war. Then there is Netflix, which has introduced dubbing in the Syrian dialect, while and as an institution it is prohibited from providing its services in Syria and even creating a Netflix user account from within Syria is forbidden. Reality is still the same, despite all forms of art.
Culture and countries are used and exploited through art, not for the purpose of development, but for personal interest and benefit.
Your movie “The Infection” shows a fascinating combination of theatre, dance, and moviemaking. Could you tell us more about this film, how it came into being, and how it was to work with other actors?
Merging the worlds of art is of great interest to me. Merging theatre and cinema was something very exciting for me. Therefore, the film’s nomination for the “Best New Media” award at the Climax film festival in Spain in 2022, in addition to its nomination for the Best Drama award at the ALTERNATIVE film festival (ALTFF) in Canada in the same year, was an honour to the entire team.
Working with other artists and in different fields to achieve a common goal, which is to serve the work that we do, has been a great experience for me on all levels.
As a last question, is there anything you would like to share with the reader of this interview?
Actually, yes. A short while ago, I finished reading the book “About Memory and Death”, especially the section ‘A Journey into the Unknowns of a Passing Death’ by Saadallah Wannous. I hope everyone reads it.
Thank you Ayham, for sharing your art and thoughts with us.
Thank you for all these questions that transported me from a silent reality caused by politics to a noisy and enjoyable world caused by reason.
You can find more information about Ayham Jabr on his website, follow him on Instagram via @ayhamjabr or contact him through email: ayhamjabr[at]gmail.com.