This publication accompanies Abounaddara: The Right to the Image, an exhibition, conference, and film series presented in recognition of Abounddara as the recipients of the second Vera List Center Prize for Art and Politics.

Image production is dependent on a fragile balance of celebrating freedom of expression and freedom of information while protecting the right to the image for everyone involved. The media’s methods for disseminating reoccurring images depicting bodies brutalized by war often work in direct opposition to this central goal. The Right to the Image celebrates the work of Syrian filmmaker collective Abounaddara and its crucial contribution to transforming the dominant international media discourse on warfare, violence and migration.

Since the onset of the Syrian revolution, the anonymous collective Abounaddara has engaged in this international debate using filmmaking tactics, releasing one short “bullet film” into the global discourse via social media every Friday. Abounaddara’s films actively work to restore a dignified image and voice to the Syrian people and aim to build new platforms for civil society to meet, regardless of national borders. Key to their artistic project is the specific political demand for an expansion of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—to amend it with the right to a dignified image.

The publication features an introduction by Anne Marquez and Dork Zabunyan; a guide to the physical and online exhibition and conference; and a list of accompanying classes and film screenings. It also features select texts by Abounaddara alongside a selection of four articles providing theoretical and scholarly frameworks for their films, as well as information about the VLC Prize.