NYC First Lady Rama Duwaji has yet again jetted overseas, this time to England where she collaborated with global pop star Dua Lipa on an art installation for the 2026 London Literature Festival.
Duwaji – a Syrian-American artist who has made more headlines for being out of the country than for being by her husband’s side – provided animation for Lipa’s “Read the World Differently” public art and billboard campaign that centers around Lipa’s Service95 Book Club, a global reading project.
Lipa, who is curating the Oct. 20-Nov. 1 festival, provided the words for the collab, FirstPost.com reported.
“I ❤️ BOOKS,” Duwaji wrote on Instagram Friday while showing off her work.
NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s wife came under fire in July for ditching America’s 250th anniversary, to jet off for an Islamic “spiritual wellness” retreat on the Spanish resort island of Mallorca ahead of the patriotic celebration.
The Dallas-raised, Dubai-educated first lady’s solo trips since Mamdani was sworn in Jan. 1 also include hitting Corscia, France in July where was a host and artist-in-residence for a The Women Sanctuary’s sold-out retreat that that honored “the legacy of Mary, the most honored woman in the Quran.”
And a month later, she resumed her role as the “artist-in-residence” with The Women Sanctuary when it hosted the “Journey through Islamic Calligraphy” retreat in Porto, Portugal.
The Women Sanctuary has called for the destruction of Israel and for “Palestine” to be cleansed of its “oppressors” in a series of hateful social media posts.
“The apartheid colonial state of Israel has committed a genocide against the Palestinian people,” reads an October 2025 Instagram post. “Abolish the colonial apartheid state of Israel. Free Palestine.”
Duwaji has a long history of bashing Israel and the USA.
On her now-inactive Tumblr account in 2015, she praised Palestinian plane hijacker Leila Khaled and members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, while reposting a tirade accusing US service members of “mercilessly slaughtering 3rd world civilians” to maintain “American hegemony.”
