The globally acclaimed cultural powerhouse Dazed marks a monumental chapter with its launch in the MENA region under the helm of Dazed alumni Editor-in-Chief Ahmad Swaid. Themed Creativity in the Age of Chaos, Dazed MENA’s issue zero spotlights youth in a world in flux celebrating the changemakers and creatives who transform uncertainty into beauty and resilience.
Dazed MENA extends the publication’s iconic global vision with stories from across the SWANA region and beyond. With an unwavering commitment to authentic and imaginative storytelling, Dazed MENA creates a foundational platform for emerging voices to collaborate in order to thrive.
“We’re living in an age where the systems we once had faith in have failed us, and truths are coming to light,” says Ahmad Swaid. “As the global power balance continues to shift, creativity is our most important resource to redefine what’s possible and inspire our communities. Creativity is our ultimate mode for liberation. Our inaugural issue reflects just that: our imagination and our realities”
The Covers
AFGHAN GIRLHOOD
Rare, first-person conversations with young women in Kabul —an unparalleled perspective that unveils the resilience and creativity of those rewriting their futures in unimaginable circumstances.
WATHEK TO THE WORLD
Founder of streetwear label Precious Trust is photographed by Dazed MENA Creative
Director, Chndy, to delve into the man, the myth and the legend that is Wathek Allal.
SURF AND SOUL
Discover how a surf subculture in Sri Lanka became a quiet rebellion for the next generation shot by Bharat Sikka and styled by Nell Kalonji.
BOUNDLESS: PARKOUR IN GAZA
Ramallah-based photographer and writer Maen Hammad speaks to the
parkourists using their bodies as vessels of liberation, leaping over the rubble as they assert their right to movement despite everything trying to stop them.
GIRLS ON WHEELS
Photographer and artist Lea Colombo travels to Ethiopia to document the girl skateboarding phenomenon sweeping the streets, with styling by Hanna Kelifa.
NEMAHSIS ON HER TERMS
Creative directed and captured by Ibrahem Hasan for her debut cover,
Palestinian-Canadian singer Nemahsis spills the tea with poet Safia Elhillo.
SOWING HOPE
In Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, one Syrian family’s work with seeds is grounding a new generation, documented by Gabriel Ferneini with words by Nur Turkmani.
HOLD THE LINE
Pascale Gambarte and Dazed MENA Fashion Director Omaima Salem team up with models Nazarit and Peris to shoot in the Paris suburbs on models Nazarit and Peris.
NOT YOUR SAINT
Shot in Berlin by Davit and styled by Dogi, this story subverts the idea of celebrity by re-examines symbols of popular culture through the alter ego of Marwan Abelhamid as he speaks to his longtime friend Dazed MENA Deputy Editor Sarra Alayyan.
The Features
TH3 FUTUR3 OF L@NGU@G3 Dee Sharma unravels the transformation of language in our digital age, examining the effects of algorithms and computer linguistics on how we communicate with one another in 2024 and beyond.
NOTHING IS SILLY TO MERIEM BENNANI In her latest exhibition, For My Best Family, the common denominator of humankind amounts to flip-flops and a 35-year-old jackal, and it’s both fantastic and absurd, prodding the core of us all.
PARIA FARZANEH: FRIENDS AND FAMILY From her studio in London, English-Iranian designer Paria Farzaneh styles and shoots her community as they wear her archival and upcoming collections. At the same time, she speaks with Caroline Issa about the trappings of the industry and how fashion is best left unfiltered.
RUBA AND RAMDANE IN CONVERSATION Joining from opposite ends of the creative spectrum, Creative director Ruba Abu Nimah and Polymath entrepreneur Ramdane Touhami come together for the first time to discuss taste today, flipping the script on creativity and never caving on values.
REIMAGINED SPACES Dazed MENA teams up with second-year architecture students from the American University of Sharjah to reimagine the possibilities of repurposing abandoned buildings from across the SWANA to interrogate the future of space.
BUMPING MY RIBCAGE Photographer Émile Samory-Fofana and stylist Jenna Bey arve out a cinematic dreamscape that’s surreal and disarming – a portal reinjecting boundless imagination into fashion from a surreal corner of the world to ours.
CHROMESTHESIA A poster visualising professor Hannah El-Sisi’s multi-media archive charting African sonic migration from the last 500 years through sound, showing the roots of the most popular music today as based in a rich history of resistance and exchange.
KHAJISTAN ZINE A 32-page zine made by Khajistan, a platform housing the most extensive counter-culture archive from across the region. Think, an Instagram page cataloguing Iranian tattoo culture amongst underground queer communities turning to the internet for their expression, Lollywood films excavating Pakistan club culture of the 70s, archives of Palestinian websites from the early 2000s to Arabic Persian typography.
With almost 140 million young people aged 10-24 making up a quarter of the region’s population—this audience is ideal for Dazed’s bold, creative vision.