Zohran Mamdani’s wife Rama Duwaji is a political cartoonist and illustrator

Earlier this week, New York City’s mayoral primaries reverberated nationwide. From New York to Los Angeles, I overheard anxious conversations amongst Democrats and progressives about what NYC’s primary race would mean for our country’s future. Would the young left-wing newcomer, Zohran Mamdani, prevail over former New York governor and alleged sex pest, Andrew Cuomo? Stunning political analysts, it was Mamdani who won the primary race, leading to rumors that Cuomo was dropping out entirely. Following her husband’s win on Election Day, Rama Duwaji posted on Instagram that she “couldn’t possibly be prouder,” which led to the discovery that she’s an animator, illustrator, and ceramicist.

Duwaji, 27, who is ethnically Syrian but was born in Houston, Texas, was not a major public presence during most of Mamdani’s campaign. However, it is obvious through her artwork that she is also an activist. In her career as an artist and illustrator, she has worked with The New Yorker, Apple, Spotify, The Washington Post, BBC, VICE, and London’s Tate Modern museum, among others, per her personal website. It says, “Using drawn portraiture and movement, Rama examines the nuances of sisterhood and communal experiences.”

In an interview with Hannah Robathan and Isabella Pearce with Shado Mag, she talked about how her identity is tied to her art. She said, “My sense of identity is ever evolving and changing, and along with it my art. The content of my work is always heavily influenced by the different stages in my life, the people I meet, the things I’m learning, and the things I’m either going through or have gone through, mostly as a way to process it all.”

Although her work is “not inherently Syrian nor Emirati,” she says that her culture still influences it “in a major way.” Duwaji told Shado, “I started exploring themes of nostalgia, and things that symbolize what it is to be Arab. I went through some cliches and definitely veered on self-orientalism as I explored different visual motifs, but eventually, it led to my work today.”

Today, Duwaji is known for her art activism. “I’ll always quote Nina Simone: ‘An artist’s duty as far as I’m concerned is to reflect the times,’” she told Menna Shanab at Yung.

“I believe everyone has a responsibility to speak out against injustice,” she added, “and art has such an ability to spread it. I don’t think everybody has to make political work, but art is inherently political in how it’s made, funded, and shared. Even creating art as a refuge from the horrors we see is political to me. It’s a reaction to the world around us.”

Check out some of her work below!