fact caught up with multidisciplinary artist Suzana Joumaa to learn about a career that’s spanned architecture and printmaking to music and painting, in times of war and peace.

When did you first become aware of the artistic field and your own talents and how did that awareness arise?
From an early age, during elementary school, I was drawing, experimenting, creating, singing and expressing myself. I was doing all of this with intense passion. Unfortunately, for years, the teachers did not believe these detailed drawings were mine! They thought an adult was drawing and I was bringing the notebook to school.
Through adolescence, my emotions, performance and focus became organised alongside drawing, art and continuous experimentation, which helped me understand what I wanted. At the age of 13, I decided I wanted to enter the Faculty of Fine Arts, and that’s what happened.

What are your sources of inspiration?
My sources of inspiration are the internal chaos in my head that is fed by nature and details, and the projection of this with the deep mental state that moves us without us noticing. This mental state is, for me, primarily driven by trauma and the deconstruction of collective trauma, the effects of ongoing wars and the pressure of modern life, along with the technological revolution, music and sounds around us.
I work in oil painting, printmaking, interior architecture, digital sculpture, mechanical interventions in sculpture, singing, music, performance and sound and visual arts.
I don’t treat these media as separate categories, but rather integrated within a single conceptual framework, where each project defines its own material logic.

You refer to shaping a ‘new wave of arts’. In layman’s terms, what do you mean by this and how is your own practice geared towards achieving it?
The new wave in art is not a style or a medium, but a position. It challenges two rooted assumptions in contemporary art: the separation between art and technology, and the idea of the artwork as a fixed and completed object.
In my artistic practice, the artwork is not a final product, but an evolving system that changes over time, interaction and context.

You are both a multidisciplinary artist and an accomplished interior architect, how do you connect the two?
Regarding art and interior architecture, they are deeply interconnected. I studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts, which allowed me to explore the core disciplines, and in my master’s thesis I went deeply into what unites the arts, as I see that the principle is the same in designing a functional, sculptural, spatial or artistic element.
Sometimes I alternate between projects, and sometimes I run them in parallel. This treatment of spaces and people’s interaction with them, and observing the audience’s interaction with art, led to the development and refinement of my artistic practice and the deconstruction of boundaries between the arts.
In my artistic practice, I have become, as a researcher, what I describe as a system-based artist. Commercially, I founded my own décor and media company in Damascus in 2006, which later evolved into my own design and art studio here in Qatar (Suzana Joumaa studio).
Over time, the income from interior architecture helped finance the art I practise until my artistic practice stabilised, because, from the beginning, I practise art for art itself, in order to leave an impact. Art is for leaving legacy and impact, not only for financial return.

You collaborated with Qatar Museums and FIFA as an official World Cup Artist. What did that entail and what work did you produce for the World Cup? It must have been both nerve wracking and satisfying to see your work on such a huge international stage?
My works were a mix between oil paintings and 3D printed sculptures with high-finish processing. One of them represents a number of welcoming calling figures derived from a creature that appeared in several of my works, known as ‘the shifting creature’, standing on sandy ground in a piece I titled ‘Hello’.
The other is ‘the shifting creature’ in its vibrant red colour, its first appearance as a sculpture. The oil paintings varied between organic forms carrying a mental state inspired by a dream, and others inspired by the Qatari mangroves. I had previously drawn attention to this natural phenomenon. Here I personalised it with transformed trees that appear as if they are walking and interacting as a family.
The works were exhibited in VIP lounges in some of the World Cup stadiums.
Yes, there was excitement during the stages of the work, where each stage felt like an achievement. Yes, it was a challenge, because the presence in VIP facilities means the most difficult audience of all – people who have everything and have seen almost everything. It was challenging on all levels, but ultimately a very satisfying achievement.

Aside from tactile and visual arts, you are also a musician having performed at Damascus Opera House and with works in cinema and TV. Please tell us about that side of your creative life.
I initially sang with rock bands in Damascus and performed at Dar Al-Funun Theater. The motivation was purely passion. I wanted to become professional in performance, so I began taking opera lessons with my teacher, the well-known and highly experienced opera singer in Damascus and Lebanon, Arax Chekijian. She was extremely strict.
The lessons coincided with an opportunity to perform in a musical production with a director and maestro from the UK for the production of Oliver Twist. I auditioned and got the role. I was very excited, as there were many important singers in the production. We performed successfully at the Damascus Opera House.
Then the revolution in Syria began, and I was among its participants, which later forced me to travel and escape to a safe place.
Later, after a long period in Qatar, I returned to training and enrolled at the Qatar Music Academy. I performed the theme song for a Syrian Ramadan series directed by Seif al-Din Subaie. Then I participated as a singer in the soundtrack of the film Woman in a Time of Siege, which was screened in Qatari cinemas.
The development continued until I began using my voice as part of my artistic works, where visual works had accompanying soundtracks in the form of short songs for each piece. I created a mini EP album titled Mind Lapse. After that, I continued this approach and released the song Don’t Judge Me Now accompanying my solo exhibition ‘Flow’, which carries a message of peace and addresses prejudice.
Work is still ongoing on projects with further development in the methodology. Currently, the works are published on private platforms, YouTube and SoundCloud, and soon, after adjustments, on additional platforms such as Spotify.
Singing extends life and is a powerful form of freedom that gives intense moments of life that I want to communicate through my artistic practice and the ‘new wave in art’ to the audience.

Hailing from Syria, I understand you lost much of your work due to war and then had to rebuild in Qatar. How did that affect you both personally and as an artist?
After losing most of my works in Damascus due to looting and destruction and witnessing the world I knew collapse before my eyes in a shocking and irreversible way, I fled due to the deteriorating security situation. I went to Cairo, where I was in shock, trying to process and count what we had lost – people, matter and hope.
I stopped art and focussed on interior architecture, keeping my mind constantly busy as a freelance designer, sometimes working unreasonable hours daily just to stay mentally occupied.
Later I moved to Doha, and the state of shock lasted for a long time. The decision to rebuild was necessary, as it was an existential struggle for me as a person and as a professional artist. I wanted to express through art again, after a long silence that I could no longer tolerate. I wanted to document collective memory in my works and circumvent what is politically forbidden in my country through symbols and narrative, and to expose what has affected us as societies in the entire region and in every region affected by war.
This happened through several successful exhibitions and participations in Qatar, then the artist residency at Fire Station (Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art), followed by awards and achievements such as Qatar Art Award and Artist of the Year Award, and being a jury member in the Art Beat competition, along with continuous exhibitions with Qatar Museums, my solo exhibition at Al Markhiya Gallery, international auctions and art fairs and the Grand Egyptian Museum.
Lectures, cultural dialogues, workshops with VCU. All of this led to the crystallisation and evolution of my artistic practice and pushed it to new limits each time, forming the ‘new wave in art’. I rebuilt myself as an artist through fractures, restoration, layers, research and continuous development of tools with courage. I still receive significant and ongoing recognition in Syria, but Qatar has deeply influenced my path.

Is Doha now where you call home and how do you view the country’s arts scene?
Qatar is currently my second homeland. It is safety even in times of war. I respect everything in it and I love it, as it has become part of me as an artist due to the long time I have spent here and due to the appreciation of my work that I’ve received here. Qatar focusses on building the human being, and this is what ultimately lasts.
As an influencer in the cultural scene here, I see that the artistic environment is evolving and rising, from Qatar hosting major international exhibitions, most recently Art Basel, and the continuous support and coverage of the art movement here.
The art scene is moving on an upward trajectory, and investment in art economically and humanly is a clear strategy that I deeply respect. Awareness of art has increased and is still developing.
Of course, the art scene for the audience still requires layers of development, multiple approaches to access and opening doors for interaction and dialogue with diverse segments of the public, but it is on the path. ✤

GO: VISIT SUZANAJOUMAA.COM OR FOLLOW @SUZANAJOUMAA FOR MORE INFORMATION.