My curated Instagram art platform

This is

Art of Thawra.

An Instagram popularly followed page that I created as an independant initiative.

it means Art of /Revolution/

The birth of the platform

On October 17, 2019, the Lebanese Revolution Began.

For the next 4 days, I watched all the young artists and designers that were on my instagram feed and that I had worked with in advertising, express their revolt with designs and colors, on their insta stories.

On October 21, 2019, I created Art of Thawra (Art of Revolution): an instagram page that would curate Lebanese Revolution Art created by Lebanese artists from all walks of art. We’re talking traditional acrylic paintings to animated digital 8 bit gifs.

Without knowing it, I had started what would become Lebanon’s to go to Revolution Art page for artists looking to blow off steam and for citizens looking for artworks to express themselves online and offline.

The Social media strategy and impact

In less than 3 months, Art of Thawra gained 20,000 organic followers. Zero dollars were spent on media boosting. it was all achieved through real time digital art briefing and sharing.

An event would happen, like french President Emanuel Macron’s visit, a moment would be captured in digital art and in less than an hour Art of Thawra would post it and circulate it on social media channels. They drew it while it’s hot and the platform spread it while it’s hot. click here to see the post in question.

#ArtOfThawra became the Revolution’s art hashtag.

Art of Thawra received about 50-100 Lebanese revolution art submissions a day between direct messages, emails and tags.

It has become home to 1500 artists and 2,000+ pieces of social media art.

The power of a social media community

Art of Thawra is in return followed by some of Lebanon’s biggest influencers and media people. Along with 10 other prominent revolution instagram accounts, it has created a hub of social media sharing focused on the revolution, but also on humanitarian aid, blood drives and crowd sourced fund raisers.

Nurturing a talented community

Even the logo was created by the people. I launched a competition in the form of an insta story, asking the artists to create their logos. After reviewing over 50 submissions, I chose this one created by Anwar Zaatari, after carefully considering the submissions. Credit is always given to the artists, on each post and each piece of communication. The platform exists to put them and their art at the forefront.

Crossing from the digital world into the physical world with an impact

Art of Thawra went on to tie up with pop of hope, a pop up store that turned the revolution art found on Art of Thawra’s instagram into printables that people could buy: tote bags, coasters, posters etc, the artists were paid royalties and all remaining profits were donated to Ngos. Pop of hope sold in Lebanon and internationally in Amsterdam, Paris, London and New York. Today, it’s running its 4th edition.

Driving investments in its rising community.

Art of Thawra tied up with Carrée D’artistes, a high end art gallery from Beirut, and sold its community’s first revolution paintings, to expats looking to support local artists amidst the crisis, with a hefty investment.

The whole communication was targeted at investors, asking them to invest in Lebanese art and showing them that by doing so, they are also investing in a Lebanese Artists.

The Platform Today

Art of Thawra is still ongoing. I am the curator. moderator and community manager.

I was invited to judge in early 2022 on a panel of juries from the Middle East. We will be judging meaningful pieces of art that have shaped revolutions in the region on social media and onground.