Dana Elborno believes the most interesting thing about a person is not what can be seen on the surface.
It’s what’s underneath.
“The least interesting thing about me is my body,” Elborno says, “and the most interesting thing about me is my mind and my art.”
That idea sits at the centre of Elborno’s emerging identity as a multidisciplinary artist, where spoken word, visual art, fashion and activism have begun to converge.
The Palestinian-Canadian activist has launched a new spoken-word series on Instagram, releasing a new piece every other Sunday alongside artistic visuals incorporating fashion. Elborno is shooting and directing the visual components herself.
The pieces are personal, drawing from experiences she has lived through and lessons she has learned.
For Elborno, giving those experiences a voice is part of a larger belief that stories matter — particularly the stories of people whose voices are often pushed aside.
She sees listening as an important part of creating, too.
“Everyone has a story,” Elborno says, describing the importance of hearing people’s experiences and creating spaces where those stories can be shared.
Her own story began publicly with activism.
Elborno became involved in activism at 17, following the events in Sheikh Jarrah in 2021. She saw what she described as a lack of local organizing and awareness around Palestine and began working to amplify Palestinian voices in Halifax.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, she organized a car rally that drew hundreds of vehicles and was eventually shut down. Her social media following grew, and she began giving speeches and workshops in the community.
Her activism also brought threats, she says, but it gave her a platform from which to speak.
Eventually, that platform became a space for art.
Elborno has always written poetry and painted. She says she has been painting since she was about 10 and has always been interested in fashion and creative expression.
But she did not initially see those interests as something she could pursue seriously.
That changed when she began attending open-mic events and found a community in spoken word.
“I never felt like I was good enough until I started putting myself in these places where people were giving me that push,” she says.
The encouragement made her reconsider what it meant to call herself an artist.
Much of Elborno’s work is rooted in her Palestinian identity. Her mother is from Jerusalem and her father is from Gaza, and her family’s history informs how she understands identity, displacement and resistance.
Statistics Canada counted 45,905 people reporting Palestinian ethnic or cultural origin in the 2021 Census, representing about 0.1 per cent of Canada’s population.
The visibility of Palestinian stories in Canadian cultural institutions has also grown over time, but not without constant back and forth. Members of the Palestinian Canadian community first approached the Canadian Museum for Human Rights about organizing an exhibition when the institution opened in 2014. Curatorial efforts for an exhibition focused on Palestinian displacement began in earnest in 2021 under curator Isabelle Masson.
For Elborno, art provides another way for Palestinian stories and identity to remain visible.
“When I say that art is a form of resistance, I mean it in two different ways,” she says.
As a Palestinian, Elborno sees existence itself as resistance against attempts to erase Palestinian identity and history.
Her art extends that resistance.
“My art is a form of resistance against occupation and against all types of racism and hatred,” she says. “It’s to say, hey, I’m here.”
But Elborno’s understanding of resistance extends beyond Palestine.
She believes continuing to create in a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, reduced arts funding and a hierarchy that can place creative careers below fields such as medicine and science is also a form of resistance.
“I believe everyone should dig deep into themselves and create in one way or another, because that’s what keeps us human,” she says.
That belief has also shaped what she wants to see happen in Nova Scotia.
Elborno says Halifax has a strong music community, but artists working in spoken word and visual art do not always have the same infrastructure or opportunities to connect.
She wants to help change that.
“Everything when it comes to art is so intertwined and so connected, but the industries are so separate here,” she says.
Her goal is to help build a stronger multidisciplinary arts community in the province, particularly for emerging artists who may not see themselves represented in existing spaces.
“If there is such a lack of something here, it’s up to us to create it,” she says.
Elborno’s recent appearance at TEDx Halifax offered a glimpse of that possibility.
She was invited to showcase her work at a booth outside the speakers’ area, where she displayed poetry, canvases and sketches. Visitors asked about the meaning behind individual pieces and followed her on Instagram.
The experience made her realize there was space for artists like her.
It also reinforced her belief that art can open conversations that might not happen otherwise.
Elborno does not want to separate her identities as an activist, poet, painter, fashion creative and content creator. Instead, she wants to bring them together—and eventually use them to create spaces where other people can do the same.
That includes an upcoming podcast project through The Hub, Emerge and Youth Art Connection with NASCAT, which is expected to launch later this year.
Elborno is also involved with The Hub, a free weekly artist workshop held Thursdays, and plans to host a poetry workshop of her own.
The podcast and Sunday spoken-word series are part of a larger creative vision that Elborno says is still taking shape.
At its centre is storytelling.
She wants her work to be vulnerable and raw, but she also wants it to make people look beyond the superficial.
“Every single thing I put out there is vulnerable and is the real me,” she says.
And that, she hopes, is what people will find when they listen — not just to her story, but to the stories of others.
For Elborno, the value of art lies in its ability to reveal what cannot always be seen.
“The most interesting thing about me is my mind and my art,” she says.
