Sarah Elawad: Connecting Art and Life with Kitsch

From her window-lined studio in Brooklyn, Sudanese-British artist and designer Sarah Elawad creates art that feels alive—maximal, messy, and full of heart. Her practice, a playful cocktail of graphic design, fashion, and visual art, turns fragments of culture and sentiment into something kitsch and tactile.

A graduate of Yale School of Art and co-manager of the experimental publishing collective Water With Water, she debuted her most ambitious piece yet, When the War is Over, at The Africa Center in New York earlier this year. Now, as Elawad prepares for her first NYC pop-up under her newly launched fashion label Sabah Elkhair, she continues to connect art and life.

What inspired you to start doing what you do?
I knew from a pretty young age that I wanted to do something in the creative field when I grew up. My dad taught me how to paint and would take me to museums, and I was inspired by all the different artworks I was exposed to. I loved the thought of creating beauty and sharing it with the world as a life purpose, and I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to emulate that.

What is the most defining moment in your career to date?
After graduating from college, I spent six months interning at a design studio in Amsterdam. I learned a lot and met great people, but I hated the nine-to-five lifestyle of working for someone else’s success. I told myself I never wanted to do it again, and started taking steps in my life to ensure I wouldn’t ever have to.
It hasn’t been easy, and there are still moments when I wonder if I should’ve chosen stability instead, but it’s been worth it. Launching my own fashion brand feels like the culmination of that early promise to myself. I don’t think I ever would have gotten here had I not made that realisation and taken those steps. 

What change are you hoping to drive with your work?  

I want my art to feel like it’s giving you a big hug. In all honesty, I don’t believe art has the power to change the world, but I do believe it has the power to touch people, to relate to their struggles and hold their hand through difficult times. And I would argue that, in a lot of cases, that is more valuable. 

My work is about sparking joy—it’s fun and even silly at times. Lately, though, many of my pieces have been reactions to moments in the world that are far from joyful. There is already so much darkness everywhere that I would like for my work to grant people dealing with heaviness a space to release and hope for better days. 

What fuels your creative process?  

God, nature, love, and the fact that I really can’t see myself doing anything else.

How do you hope to see the SWANA region’s creative and cultural scene evolve in the coming years?  

I just want it to keep growing and growing until it takes over the world! I want it to develop past just nostalgia and poems about mango trees—there’s some real beauty to be produced and so much talent. The more that is produced, the more originality we will start to see. There is so much room for further explorations of storytelling, and I think it would be nice to see more outreach, more collaboration with people outside our inner circles. Our stories have been silenced by the masses for so long, and it’s time we regain ownership of that by sharing as much of it as we can.