Dalia Al-Dujaili: Dissecting the Bounds of Belonging

Dalia Al-Dujaili’s practice is rooted first and foremost in journalism. A writer, editor, programmer, and producer, her work centres on documenting and amplifying historically marginalised SWANA voices across print and digital media. She is the founder of The Road to Nowhere, a magazine dedicated to diaspora storytelling, alongside a prolific body of journalistic work published in The Guardian, Dazed and more. Through writing, interviews, and more recently, curation, Al-Dujaili has creates spaces for SWANA artists working across disciplines, positioning her practice as both a record and an act of resistance.

Al-Dujaili is an amalgamation of all the forces she deems important in life. She channels her Iraqi and Mesopotamian ancestry as much as her creative community in London through her work, creating new avenues for expressing subaltern identity in an increasingly entangled world. “I’m surrounded by DJs, designers, archivists, florists, stylists, writers, painters, and so much more, all of whom wear their culture on their sleeve in their own unique way,” she shares. It’s these peers, along with acts of bravery by regular people, that inspire Al-Dujaili’s pursuit of truth-telling, centring those in the margin—and connecting stories while she’s at it. 

Most recently, she released her debut book, Babylon, Albion: A Personal History of Myth and Migration, a lyrical non-fiction inquiry into what it means to be native. A memoir of sorts, it’s described as “a love song to Britain, Iraq, and the body of earth we hold in common.” Al-Dujaili describes this book as her career’s highlight thus far, crediting it to years of meeting and working with other artists. “Every time I speak to an amazing artist, I feel changed by them and the conversations we have,” she explains. “It’s the everyday tasks and conversations that actually go a long way in defining my wider career.” 

Al-Dujaili is also deeply inspired by nature and her growing relationship with the earth. When asked what she would like to reshape with her practice, her response is as personal as it is expansive: “I hope to deepen my own relationship with the natural world and help people see earth’s health and longevity as directly linked to their own.”

With storytelling at its core, her work is evocative in that it touches all the different crevices that make up the assemblages of her identity. From the earth she inhabits to the friends she has made along the way, her practice feels like a converging point. When describing her inspiration, she says, “I also love the work of my ancestors; Iraqi and Mesopotamian culture and history has been such a creative force in my life.” Al-Dujaili’s ongoing exploration carries on the legacy of her ancestors, constantly in conversation with history and identity as it travels through time and across borders. Born and raised in the UK, she exemplifies much of the movement of her region while doing work to keep those same ideas alive and breathing. 

When it comes to bridging gaps in the way that art and thought from the SWANA region travels, Al-Dujaili’s work is inherently communal—it functions both as a vehicle and a pathway for future artists. The changemaker has been interviewing and platforming creatives from the region for years, such as Sakir Kahder, Nemahsis and Ahmed Malek, spending her time curating workshops, screenings, and community events to bring together artists and thinkers with likeminded goals. She has collaborated with some of London’s most prominent cultural institutions from the TATE and the V&A to the Barbican,“My work is also about linking the region and its artists with the rest of the world, highlighting that our struggles are interconnected globally, and that our creative output is to be celebrated and enjoyed by everyone.”

This week, Dalia opens her first curated exhibition, To Belong to Land, collaborating with Palestinian photographers, hoping to keep exploring her curatorial practice. As she gears up to launch HIKMA, a library on Iraq and Mesopotamia, and relaunch her magazine The Road to Nowhere, Dalia continues to consume a steady diet of nature, good music, good coffee, and of course good people.