Syrians know their way—from visual memory making to digital testimonies

ABSTRACT

A decade after the 2011–2013 Syrian uprising, many had forgotten the country’s revolutionary struggle. A year later, Bashar Al-Assad was ousted just as suddenly as the 2011 revolts had arisen. In this article, Miriyam Aouragh researches how revolutionary events are remembered and mediated through critical digital ethnography. Examining in a unique case study, the article demonstrates how different features of digital visual media were produced by the art collective Al Sha’b Al Suri Aref Tarikh (ASSAT) (“Syrian people know their way”). Through this empirical study it discovered how the visuals simultaneously correspond to the different stages in Syria’s revolutionary experiences. Doing so, the article presents ASSAT as a unique phenomenon that visually documented Syria’s uprising. ASSAT’s visual expressions provide a temporal appraisal of the different junctions of revolutionary experiences, and demonstrates that chronicling the extraordinary phases of resilience, has also shaped their own lives. Their engagement set in motion future political effects, even when they were unable to salvage a revolutionary project in their own present.