ART FORMS AND POPULAR PROTEST IN THE SYRIAN CIVIL WAR

Abstract

There has been ongoing conflict in Syria since the Arab Spring protests of 2011. The protest movement and anti-regime fighting have been well documented as has the violent response of the regime to the popular uprising. This thesis studies the role that art has played in the Syrian Civil War from the perspective of the Syrians who are opposed to the current Assad regime. Specifically, it investigates three art forms – graffiti, political cartoons, and digital art – and how they have functioned as means of documenting the conflict, uniting people against the regime and testifying to those outside of Syria about the conditions faced by both people remaining in the country and refugees. The period covered in this thesis is from 2011 to 2017 and, since this is recent history, there is not yet much research or analysis published on the topic. To make the argument that art has had a definite and important impact on cultural perceptions of the Syrian Civil War, I studied sources from within and outside of Syria, though a significant part of the analysis also comes from my own study of the art that I have chosen and its importance in the context in which it was created. Ultimately, I found that art was an essential part of popular resistance to the regime, and it will have significant value in the future for how it documented this period of upheaval.