20 February – 25 April 2024
My emotions are a whirlwind of fire, and though my heart beats, it is hollow. It exists, yet it is hollow. Everything is in disarray, and anything other than madness no longer feels normal.
Suzana Joumaa is a multidisciplinary artist, interior architect, singer, and songwriter. She earned a BA in Fine Arts and an MFA with distinction in surreal art and architecture from Damascus University and later obtained a diploma in International Arbitration from Ain Shams University in Egypt. Formerly an assistant professor in the Department of Architecture at the Arab International University in Damascus, Joumaa has also performed as a singer on television, in cinema, and at the Damascus Opera House. She often composes original soundtracks to accompany her visual artworks.
I have always looked into my inner self, at times confronting it and other times I just enjoy the company with it. I was forced to leave Damascus and everything it represented. I carried my history, my joys, and my disappointments in silence, until the moment I decided to reveal everything with full confession. I am the place, the home, the sense of belonging, and my paradise reside within my heart. I have become everything to myself. In my travels, I am with and against myself. My homeland has become a dream, a paradise in the heavens of my memory. My land is no longer here; it exists in the place with no essence. I seek a world where all weapons will exhale water instead of fire, and every woman will be a queen. Every time I think I have forgotten the crashing waves, a major event comes like a huge blender, grinding everything - the earth, the heart, and the soul. I will allow the trapped thunder to escape gently, and wavy, flowing disguised in the colours of life. I will use all the tools and spare nothing, to give to you what I saved from Damascus and what I have I created here.
