Sawa, Sawa

Sawa, Sawa is a digital space by and for 18-26 years old South West Asian and North African (SWANA) artists in the UK that reflects how we’ve navigated the past 15-month struggle in our own empowered way. It is conceived, curated and produced by Young Shubbak, a collective of 18-25 years old artists, curators and producers.

In an age of social media algorithms and overwhelming news headlines, it is difficult for our generation to imagine a future. It feels as though the world - as we know it - is short-lived, causing overwhelming stress and anxiety for young people. Instead, we want to honour how young artists have coped during a year of confusion and rapid change. 

To move forward, we need to recognise where we are now and where we have come from. Our digital space acknowledges the challenges and gently directs them towards the exit, celebrating the resilience of young people who have used art to begin a dialogue with the struggle whilst holding space for the warmth they’ve found. 

The fourteen featured artists, selected from an open call, use their respective crafts to poignantly reflect the process of growth within lockdown. 

Visual artists Perrine Davari, Nada el Kalaawy, Mana Merikhy, and Rakan Saab, evoke the introspective and mundane realities of lockdown, daring to capture vulnerable moments of solitude, mental health struggles, and confrontations with temporality. They share complete works alongside the sketching processes that served as refuge against the banality of the everyday. 

Performance artists/writers/musicians, Amina Atiq, Sara el Harrak and Laila Staubmann turn to household bubbles as a chance to collaborate with their brothers and grandmothers. They create works that transport them to their version of what home and reconnecting with their geographical cultures means. On their own terms, they reclaim ownership of external narratives often projected onto their heritage. 

Raman Aso, Abdelrahman Salih, Layla Madanat and Eleanor Nawal take the opportunity to interrogate their diasporic experience using innovative personal methodologies to connect to their communities. Excitingly, Bint Mbareh devises a new work based on telephone conversations between strangers, integrating the alternative ways we’ve found to connect and create during lockdown into the programme.

Sawa Sawa celebrates a stopping of time, a moment to reflect as the artists turn towards their inner complexities. Through this growth, they foster a newly found connection with community and what it means to exist in this new world within which we find ourselves. 

Participating artists:

• Abdulisms
• Perrine Nahid Davari Asbabad
• Raman Aso
• Amina Atiq & Granma Hayla
• Nada Elkalaawy
• Sara El Harrak & Youness El Harrak 
• Layla Madanat & Eleanor Nawal
• Bint Mbarerh
• Mana-Rose Merikhy
• Rakan Saab
• Laila Staubmann & Husam Staubmann