Who is Rama Duwaji?

Born in Houston, Texas, Rama moved with her family to Dubai when she was nine. She later returned to the U.S. to attend Virginia Commonwealth University and earned her master’s in illustration from the School of Visual Arts in New York.

Her work — featured in The Cut, Vogue, The New Yorker, and BBC — explores themes of identity, womanhood, and displacement.

On Instagram, where she has more than 250,000 followers, her artwork often focuses on Middle Eastern women, Gaza, and the Palestinian cause.

”I believe everyone has a responsibility to speak out against injustice, and art has such an ability to spread it,” Duwaji said in an interview earlier this year.

“With so many people being pushed out and silenced by fear, all I can do is use my voice to speak out about what’s happening in the US and Palestine and Syria as much as I can,” she added.