Rise : Artwork 2

The Arabic oral proverb tradition has no single author. Al-Ittihad Quwwa belongs to no poet, no philosopher, no attributed source — it belongs to the culture, which is its authority. Passed across generations without a name attached, it is the kind of phrase a grandmother says, that appears in newspapers and football chants, that is chalked onto building sites and embroidered onto cushions. The word ittihad carries more than unity: it implies a becoming-one, an active process of convergence, rather than a state of agreement. Quwwa is strength in its physical, material, undeniable form — not bravery or virtue but force, the kind you can feel. Together the phrase makes an argument about collective identity that every Arab culture in every era has found relevant and necessary. Its long life across vastly different political and social contexts is itself the evidence. For an entryway, a living room, or any space where the nature of a home as a collective enterprise is the point.