Lehman Center For Human Rights 8th Annual Conference

“Watch your step when you cover dangerous stories. No pictures are more important than your life”
​                                                              - Bassam Khabieh, Conflict Photographer

Through seven years of war, Syrian artists have played a crucial role as witnesses to the devastation of their country, and to the suffering and fortitude of its people. This one-day conference explores Syrian cultural producers’ varied responses to the ongoing conflict. Visual artists, playwrights, musicians, and filmmakers invoke, critique, and give voice to experiences of oppression, trauma, exile, and loss. Wartime works reflect an intensification of the outrage, longing, ambivalence, irony, and contradiction that have long imbued Syrian expressive culture. This conference showcases rarely seen works by Syrian artists, and places their creators in dialogue with a young generation of Syrian academics and activists.
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The Organizers

Christa Salamandra

Interim Director, Lehman Center for Human Rights and Peace Studies
Professor of Anthropology
Lehman College and The Graduate Center
City University of New York

Nour Halabi

PhD Candidate (A.B.D.) Annenberg School for Communication​

Marianna Al-Tabbaa

M.A. Candidate, Political Science, NYU
​Policy Research Fellow, Human Rights Watch​

Participants

Bassam Khabieh
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Liwaa Yazji

Maan Mouslli
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Mohamad Hafez

Aya Aljamili
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Samer Ali 

Eden Zane
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Noor Hamdi