An art x tech lab

Lynn Mayya and I were introduced in the summer of 2025, and started talking about how people meet, learn, and collaborate when institutions feel distant, fragile, or inaccessible, in post-liberation Syria. These conversations were about absence: how much effort is constantly duplicated across communities. how knowledge disappears when people leave, when platforms shut down, or when access becomes uneven – how many people across the diasporas are working in parallel, but rarely cross paths.

So we decided to collaborate on Art x Tech Lab: a two part lecture and workshop series that introduces digital arts tools, new media arts theory, and shared resources. It was presented in the form of a guest lecture for the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus University, in collaboration with Madad Art Foundation.

 " و وضحت كتير قصص eye-opening ممنون جداً لورشة اليوم، كانت كتير "

After that, we started thinking more seriously about decentralized efforts: how do we build something that doesn’t depend on one person, one institution, or one platform? How do we leave behind reusable resources, documentation, and a network that can grow in different cities over time?

We started the Digital Arts SWANA discord server as one small step toward that: a place to share links, calls, tools, and people without starting from zero every time. If you know groups, spaces, or tools that should be part of this network, let us know !