Watan
Words by Nada Abdelrahim
Watan is an arts shop that explores Palestinian heritage in all its forms. It is an idea that reimagines what an art studio can look like as a community space, a place for art and collaboration.
It began as a personal project by founder Jumana Al-Qawasmi after she graduated college. She wanted to fill in the gaps of her Palestinian identity and inform herself of the history and culture that wasn’t talked about. Even while she was in school, she would sit in class and create. As she started to reclaim agency by learning about her background, this growth was reflected in her work. Her mother got sick of the growing pile of projects, and so Al-Qawasmi started an Etsy and sold what she was making. Even the name WATAN, which means homeland in Arabic, was only intended as a placeholder until she could find something more permanent. But it’s four years later, and the name has stuck.
The first real significant reception Al-Qawasmi received of her work was for her original prints. In early 2015, she began seriously selling and moved to a permanent website space. As Watan developed online, Al-Qawasmi saw it as a visual Wikipedia of Palestinian history, especially for English-speaking natives. A large part of Watan’s social media presence is the illustrations of cultural signifiers related to Palestine. Al-Qawasmi intends for these to serve as an introduction for those interested in learning more, a jump start into their own research.
The designs at Watan are the things that Al-Qawasmi wants. They are the things that are missing. She creates her designs usually one of two ways: either to highlight a particular “cultural gem” or by adapting a design to be representative of Palestine in a way that is unique. When it comes to her style, she wants her pieces to feel handmade; if things look too clean, she’ll rough them up. She doesn’t want her items to feel mass-produced, so items are partly hand-finished in the studio.
Watan is Al-Qawasmi’s playground, where she can experiment with whatever she can imagine. Her ideas are only limited by time and production capability. She wants the pieces of Watan to be a little totem (yes, think Inception, the movie) for anyone that buys something, to tie them back to home, to Palestine.
She does not want to divorce politics from art, because, in the same vein of the Black Power art movement, Al-Qawasmi is inspired to have purpose in her work. Watan is an art studio and brand that is conscious of the politics it imparts. The Palestinian people in the diaspora and under occupation means that their very identity and existence is political. To Al-Qawasmi, accountability in her work is vital; Watan should always be a community space, and she wants to design and create without diluting the complicated history and culture. Giving back to the community is important for Al-Qawasmi. One way Watan has strengthened this relationship is with the recent addition of an event space that opens up opportunities for workshops and community engagement. It’s not about donating money (a symptom of our capitalist society), but rather it’s about making an impact with things like art and crafting workshops to build engagement and a legacy to remember and live by. Seeing the community establish a connection with Watan, and experience the learning and healing that comes with art, makes Al-Waqasmi’s every existential crisis worth it.
Watan also recently expanded in March 2019, adding a second studio space in Amman, Jordan. There were many reasons for this international move: she sources and produces many items from her collection in Amman and finds the proximity to her extended family comforting. Mostly, though, she wanted a tangible reason to tie her back to Arab countries, especially with her immediate relatives living in the US.
Al-Qawasmi wants to be part of the growing presence of creative work in Jordan. She is making it a point to create a space that serves the community she is entering, like providing bilingual communication to increase accessibility. The future for Watan is open and full of possibilities, and Al-Qawasmi has a lot of ideas and hopes to further those possibilities. She would love to see Watan as a sort of museum or cultural center concentrated on Palestinian existence and the arts. The dream she finds most intangible is to open up a space like Watan in Palestine.
Thinking about how she will be remembered and how her work will live beyond her keeps Al-Qawasmi from falling into creating work that is short-term and superficial. To see her design live on and be passed down through generations would represent her success. Anyone hoping to follow a similar path should ask whether they are compromising themselves in the process—did you dilute yourself on the way to your goals? For Al-Qawasmi, she feels proud that she can look at herself in the mirror and say that she likes what she created, especially in herself.
You can learn more about Watan here.
