15: Towards the Yet to Be Named
Ettijahat – Independent Culture was founded in 2011 to support Syrian cultural and creative work. It articulated a vision of building a pluralist, diverse and intellectually and artistically productive Syria, a country where access to art and culture is considered a right for every Syrian citizen. Ettijahat has contributed to fostering an independent cultural sector that engages dynamically with its social surroundings, builds on creativity as a means of change, and enables audiences to recognise culture as a positive force in their lives.
Ettijahat began its work in Damascus at the onset of the Syrian revolution. In 2013, the team was forced to relocate to Beirut in order to continue its operations. This move marked a second beginning for the organisation, positioning it within a broader regional context shaped by the profound transformations the Arab region has witnessed over the past decade and a half. As Syria extended beyond its geographical borders, Ettijahat expanded its mission to reach Syrians wherever they are. It also added to its portfolio the Mashreq and the diaspora, seeking to engage with the meaning of regional work in a deeply interconnected space, where the local and the regional continuously intersect, guided by a belief in solidarity and shared learning.
The arts have never been peripheral in this region. They have long served as a testing ground where questions emerge before entering the public sphere. In recent years, cultural and artistic production across the Arab region has taken on both longstanding and newly emerging roles, closely tied to the uprisings and transformations experienced by its societies. The cultural sector has had to respond to profound and violent shifts across public life, operating in contexts where humanitarian, social, and economic crises intersect with environmental and health-related challenges. Against reductive narratives that strip the region of its plurality and silence its living voices, cultural actors have continued to assert their role within broader struggles for freedom, dignity, and democracy. The cultural scene has wagered on amplified solidarity among practitioners and across societies, as well as developing cross-sectoral approaches. As crises deepened and accumulated throughout the years, many cultural practitioners began to critically reflect on the meaning and value of their work, and on their relationship with communities in times shaped by displacement, forced migration, destruction, and the fragmentation of states.
During this turbulent period, Ettijahat has sought to reflect, where possible, on its role as an intermediary cultural organisation taking on several hats, and on what that role means within the Syrian context and beyond. It has also grappled with how to balance its work in Syria with its engagement in neighbouring countries and across the diaspora. Through this ongoing reflection, Ettijahat has come to recognise that crisis and instability are no longer exceptional, but have become the new normal. Responding to shrinking spaces of justice and to the shift towards protracted conflict in Syria and across much of the region is the most grounded understanding to propel operations forward. This has translated into new forms of engagement within Syria, insistence on the transformative potential of the arts, and continued support for artistic production in public life, alongside efforts to ensure independent structures for production, dissemination, and distribution. It has also involved creating spaces for research and knowledge production, integrating approaches to heritage that strengthen social cohesion and protect diversity, expanding opportunities for innovation, and developing programmes of support and solidarity in Lebanon, Palestine, and across the Arab region. Additional initiatives have been designed for artists relocating to Europe, alongside enhanced protection and safety frameworks for cultural and artistic workers, broadened access to include socially and economically marginalised groups, and strengthened presence in both digital and public spheres. Throughout, the organisation has refused to accept the normalisation of stagnation or the impossibility of change in Syria and the region.
Over these years, Ettijahat has built extensive field experience under extremely challenging conditions. It has supported artistic and cultural production within Syria at times when working there carried significant risk, stood by artists and intellectuals at moments of acute vulnerability, and developed regional and international partnerships to ensure that Syrian cultural voices, and those from across the Arab region, continue to be heard in exile. Throughout its journey, the organisation has been led by a diverse team committed to bridging thought and practice: research grounded in lived realities, creative production that sustains resilience, and solidarity that refuses to push cultural work to the margins in times of crisis.
The end of 2024 brought renewed hope for long-awaited change in Syria, driven by the efforts of thousands of activists and victimised thousands of offenders and innocents. There was a sense that Syrians were reclaiming their public space, and that arts, culture, and heritage could once again become central to the country’s priorities. These fields hold the potential to contribute to imagining a new Syria and to supporting processes of transitional justice, civil peace, and social cohesion, as well as the right to a state that embraces all its citizens. At the same time, a historic opportunity appeared to emerge to address fragmentation and reduce divisions within the cultural sector, and to engage with the present moment, with all its weight and complexity, as a basis for imagining a better future.
Yet the path of transition, as we aspire to it, remains fraught with new and ongoing crises. It is marked by deep divisions within Syrian society and unfolds within a volatile regional context shaped by recurring conflicts. Urgent efforts are needed to address Syria’s priorities and to safeguard the rights of all its citizens, including cultural rights, without exclusion or hierarchy, while confronting the violence, fragmentation, and tensions affecting many communities. In this context, art remains one of the few spaces through which societies can continue to imagine themselves anew.
For Syria, this moment calls for two parallel paths: first, a deeper and more critical reflection on what has happened and what has passed, building on it without rushing to conclusions; and second, a radical reimagining of Syria’s future, alongside a cultural engagement with what lies ahead. This process should accompany broader transformations by drawing on the capacity of the arts to improve present conditions. Such reimagining cannot rely solely on past experiences or lessons. It requires new tools we have yet to develop, platforms for independent and in-depth research, and spaces for creative thinking and experimentation that move beyond the limits of the familiar.
In the regional context, there is a need to contribute to learning, understanding, and critically engaging with how the region is being reshaped, and to explore alternative pathways for this reflection beyond the dominant logic of militarisation, weaponisation, and intimidation, logics that prevail in their most arbitrary forms. It is equally vital to resist the marginalisation and silencing of civil actors in their pursuit of dignity, justice, and democracy.
At the international level, there is a pressing need to examine the repercussions of a world increasingly darkened by excesses of power, alongside the ongoing erosion of accountability and governance values, and a waning commitment to institutions in their broader sense. These are being replaced by new structures designed to concentrate power, resources, and narratives, structures that exclude anything that does not conform to their newly imposed rules.
Within these contexts, Ettijahat marks its fifteenth anniversary against the backdrop of a new and devastating war in Lebanon, where most of its team is based. Amid this dense and complex present, the organisation is compelled to question its place and role within, and in relation to, the cultural and artistic sector it serves. On this anniversary, and in the face of accelerating upheavals, the organisation continues to reflect on how to remain relevant. It celebrates the achievements of the Syrian cultural sector, the importance of regional collaboration as a means of survival, and the voices of the diaspora that remain deeply connected to developments in the region. This anniversary therefore unfolds across parallel and intersecting tracks, details of which will be announced at a later stage, united by a shared spirit: the pursuit of a meaningful, sustained, and productive presence.
Fifteen years on, our question remains the same: how can culture and the arts continue to be a real force in people’s lives? Today, we renew our tools to respond: a new form, a long-standing commitment, and a continuing role.
Ettijahat – Independent Culture: In the Midst of Change
