Laila Ajjawi

Born in 1990 in Irbid refugee camp in Jordan, Laila Ajjawi is a Palestinian street artist who currently lives in Amman. Her family comes from the Jenin Ajja village in Palestine. Her grandparents were forced to leave their land and move to Irbid in 1948. She uses the camp’s walls to spread awareness about the Palestinian situation and female empowerment. She has enrolled into the humanitarian field and uses art to advocate refugee causes.

Living in a refugee camp has shaped my character and my personality and has influenced my perspective on this world. Being born in a place like this is totally different than being born outside of it. The camp has always been a big bubble for me, I believed the world outside would be so much different, until I managed to get outside and explore it.
The camp was my first yard, the place where I started making art for the first time, directly on its walls. A safe choice for me, because this was my place, and these were my people. It was like experiencing something within myself: I watched closely, and I understood the potential of a graffiti, how powerful it could become if I just added a strong message in it. I started noticing how people reacted, how they started conversations while I was drawing. I must have looked rather strange to them, because street art being made wasn’t something that you would normally see in daylight. Of course, we are used to seeing a lot of graffiti inside the camps, on their walls, and it’s almost always the same type of graffiti, linked to the Palestinian cause and land, with common phrases and shapes. This can be seen in all Palestinian refugee camps, in Jordan and outside. But street art, understood in terms of fine art, was new to them, regardless of the fact that I was a woman. Many didn’t expect to find me behind these works, since the street art scene worldwide has been dominated by men: so it was a surprise for them to see my works and realise I was the author.