Creativity In The Age of Chaos: Ahmad Swaid on Radical Imagination

We all long for connection in this world, and in these deeply painful times, that desire has never felt more urgent. I believe empathy is the highest form of courage; evidence of this is around us and in the stories you see take shape as we launch Dazed MENA into the world.

Throughout this process, the Dazed MENA team united to redefine what creativity means in a world designed to silence and limit our potential. The stories that we share reexamine creativity (a term often overused and oversimplified) in the modern age, and for those of us, across the global majority. Whether you are a young woman in Kabul standing in your power wearing your favourite dress at home or a nine-year-old Syrian boy in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley tending to your ancestral lands, or a parkourist in Gaza enduring the shattering violence yet resisting through movement – everywhere, imagination becomes a form of liberation and the endurance that allows us to preserve.

When I look back at our inaugural issue, which finds stories from Addis Ababa to Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka and beyond, I don’t just see the stories of the people we have featured but also the team and our global network of contributors who make them happen.

This launch reflects the truth of the world we live in and the possibilities of the one we imagine. These pages, photographs, and stills – print or digital – have been crafted to remind us that when faith in systems falters, systems designed to silence and limit our potential, our communities find strength in each other. These pages are a dedicated snapshot of creativity; people who might be divided by borders and language are united by the understanding that imagination is a form of liberation.

As Dazed MENA launches, I reflect on the journey that brought me here and on my adolescence in Beirut, Aleppo, Freetown, and London. The dreams I had then have now become my reality. I am thankful to the incredible team here at Dazed MENA, Sarra, Chndy, Omaima, Fady, Daoud and Fatima, who have made this all happen. For I know in the corners of the world where they grew up, they were all dreaming the same dream too.

Welcome to Dazed MENA