Palestine 106: Art as Resistance
Welcome to Palestine 106! This is the sixth post in our series meant to provide introductory information on Palestine's history, culture, and politics. If you’ve wanted to learn more about the situation in Palestine but have felt confused or overwhelmed by the amount of information out there, this series is for you!
In this post, we will discuss how Palestinians use various art forms as a means of resistance against Israeli occupation and apartheid as well as dehumanization by the West.
Street Art
Despite the frequent dismissal of graffiti as “vandalism”, it has always been used to make political and social statements, particularly for people of color. The ever-changing nature of the art form allows it to serve as a reflection of the current moods and desires of the communities in which it exists. During the Second Intifada in 2002, Israel began the construction of an illegal 700 km (435 mi) by 8 m (26 ft) wall that separates the West Bank from Israeli territory. Shortly after the construction of this apartheid wall, both local and foreign artists began to use it as a canvas for various street art pieces protesting Israeli occupation and representing Palestinian resilience.
A reference to Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People
In 2005, Banksy traveled to the West Bank to paint a series of 9 works that garnered international attention and put the separation wall on the map for the art community outside of Palestine. Banksy’s West Bank artwork is not without its critics, as many feel that it has turned the wall into an art tourism attraction and distracts people from the gravity of the wall’s impact on the lives of local Palestinians.
Banksy’s Rage, the Flower Thrower (left) and Flying Balloon Girl (right)
While Banksy pieces tend to be the focus of those analyzing street art in Palestine, graffiti has existed in Gaza and the West Bank since the First Intifada in the 1980s. However, it has historically been done by either unknown artists or in the name of resistance groups as a whole. For decades street art pieces have been popping up in blank spaces across Palestine to convey messages of resilience, defiance, and the desire for Palestinian liberation.
Murals of eyes in East Jerusalem, painted by the Madaa-Silwan Creative Center to remind settlers that people are watching the atrocities they commit.
Visual Art
Paintings, sculptures, photography, and other installations are another way that the stories of Palestinians are shared through art. These modes of more “traditional” art offer a new perspective into how art is used to push the boundaries of Israeli apartheid. Nabil Anani is one of the most well-known Palestinian visual artists still working today. His work varies between paint, ceramic, and sculpture. He uses tools from his culture to create his art, including henna, natural dyes, leather, wood, beads, Papier-mâché, and copper. In 1977 Yasser Arafat awarded him the first Palestinian National Prize for Visual Art and he helped found the first International Academy of Fine Art in Palestine (among other art organizations). Anani is particularly popular for his landscapes including one of his most famous pieces, Eye on Jerusalem. In this painting, he uses natural materials like straw and dried flowers to create texture and highlight the natural colors of Palestine.
Eye on Jerusalem via The New Arab
Sculpture is one of the most impactful art forms. Khaled Hussein has mastered this in his most popular pieces that showcase the missing limbs of those who have had them blown off by bombs. He created several different works, all as part of a collection titled I Miss You Very Much. Hussein’s main goal is to highlight the reality of Palestinian existence under violent occupation, like the genocide they have been facing since October 7th.
Photo via The Economic Times, showcasing a sculpture in this collection that displays a leg next to a mirror referring to “phantom limb,” a condition common in amputees.
Laila Shawa is a Palestinian artist known for her intricate and profound installments. The one pictured below is an AK-47 (an automatic assault rifle and weapon of war) covered in Swarovski crystals, rhinestones, Japanese gold pigment, feathers, magnets, and resin. She calls this Where Souls Dwell, referring to the butterflies, or souls, that are taken by the AK-47, a weapon often used to kill Palestinian civilians.
Photo via Art Net
Photography is another profound art form, especially when highlighting advocacy movements. In the example of Palestinians, they are almost always depicted in crisis. Western media only shares images of Palestinians as they hold their martyred child or throw a stone at a tank. Photographing Palestinian day-to-day life became a critical part of documenting Palestinian identity. Motaz Azaiza, a photojournalist, has been documenting Palestinian life before and throughout the recent genocide. He stated, “I miss taking photographs of children playing on the swings, the elderly smiling, families gathering, the sights of nature and the sea, my beautiful Gaza”. Between his journalism and his photography, his work has become some of the most influential imagery in Palestinian history. It is key to understand that Palestinian photography is not just meant to document their lives in crisis, it is to humanize them.
Photo via @motaz_azaiza on Instagram, captioned: “It’s the only outlet for Gazans ! Their limited & polluted sea.”
Embroidery (Tatreez)
Tatreez is a form of traditional Palestinian embroidery that dates back thousands of years. It is typically stitched into a thobe (a dress or robe) or other garment and historically represented the life of the woman that made it. Tatreez motifs and styles vary from village to village, but because it reflects the unique environment in which it was made, it visually documents the history of Palestinian women and girls. Since 1948, passing down the practice of tatreez has been both a means of sharing an art form and of cultural preservation. The destruction and displacement that occurred during the Nakba stripped many women of the ability to sustain their tatreez practices, and yet they committed to teaching their daughters the techniques they had carried with them from their home villages. Today, embroidering tatreez is a continuation of an ancient art and a way that people (particularly in the diaspora) can connect to Palestinian women of the past.
Tatreez also has a rich history of use in resistance movements. During the First Intifada in the late 80s, flying the Palestinian flag was banned and Palestinians had to turn to alternative means of nationalistic representation. Women stitched motifs that depicted the uprisings using the colors of the flag, adapting their embroidery in accordance with the present political climate. Their work showed symbolism of Palestinian culture, resistance fighters, and even escape routes for protestors targeted by the IOF. They doubled down on their commitments to passing tatreez down in opposition to Israel’s attempts at cultural demolition. Despite ethnic cleansing, cultural destruction, and now a genocide, tatreez lives on as a testament to Palestinian resilience.
An “intifada thobe” via the Textile Research Center
Literature
Mahmoud Darwish via The Palestine Project
A key method of emotional expression is poetry. Mahmoud Darwish was deemed Palestine’s national poet after he was first arrested for reciting poetry in Palestinian villages without a permit. He worked in various newspapers and journals and was on the executive committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. His famous poem, “Identity Card,” became a protest song. In this poem, after mentioning his eight children, he states, “For them I wrest the loaf of bread/The clothes and exercise books/From the rocks” (Darwish). He depicts forcibly pulling his family’s belongings from beneath the rubble. These same rocks are mentioned again when he says, “You stole my forefather’s vineyards/And land I used to till,/I and all my children,/And you left us and all my grandchildren/Nothing but these rocks./Will your government be taking them too/As is being said?/So!” (Darwish). The reference to the Israeli government taking all but rocks and then taking those, too, speaks volumes to the heartache that Palestinians face at the hands of the occupation. Poetry, along with other means of writing, came to be a stronghold in a culture that lacked written history. Literature serves as a way to convert oral storytelling into a format more easily shared with those outside of the Palestinian community, thus providing them with a means through which to understand the nuances of Palestinian life.
Dance & Music
Dabke is a traditional folklore dance that appears in different variations across the Levant, including in Palestine. While the origin of the dance is disputed, it is said to have originated from Canaanite fertility rituals which emphasized connection to the earth and chasing away evil spirits, as well as potentially to prepare the ground for farming. In traditional house building, walls and roofs were constructed of dirt which needed to be compacted, and dabke was a way to make packing mud into a community event. Over time, the dance has morphed into a cultural practice performed at events like parties and weddings, preserving history and connecting today’s Palestinians to their ancestors who lived in the region thousands of years ago. Dabke is characterized by distinct stomp and jump motions, which symbolize Palestinian connection to their land through physical emphasis of the action of contact with the earth.
Palestinian dabke via SceneNow
Dabke is traditionally accompanied by a specific kind of poetically structured music, which commonly deals with themes of love and relationship with the land. Palestinian music extends beyond dabke, as historically Palestinian farmers would sing folklore songs while working and music was used to carry oral history between communities. Musicians today still use traditional instruments like the oud (lute), mijwiz (flute), and tabla (hand drum), often incorporating them into their more modern works.
In 1948, dabke and music (along with all forms of Palestinian culture) became highly politicized and developed into forms of resistance. Dabke had a resurgence in popularity and elders committed to passing it down, while music shifted to reflect themes like persistence under occupation and desire to return home. Resistance songs have existed since ancient times and across different communities, serving to inspire and unite oppressed peoples. Recent times have seen the revitalization and recording of past folk songs, like “Ya Tala’ayn El-Jabal”. This song was sung by women as they climbed local mountains to visit prisoners, calling for their freedom and concealing the message of the song by inserting “lelele” between words. More modern songs, like George Totari’s Swedish “Leve Palestina” or Muhammed Assaf’s “Dammi Falastini” send messages of nationalism, hope for liberation, and a yearning to return to the homeland. Many of these songs resonate with people outside of the Palestinian community, indicating that they hit on the common feelings of those who have been separated from their homelands. Release of resistance songs has also tended to coincide with uprisings, such as during the First and Second Intifadas where music focused more on resistance and revolution. Today, both music and dance exist as forms of community bonding and also ways for Palestinians to find moments of revolutionary joy in disastrous times.
In 1986, Palestinian academic Edward Said wrote that “Exile is a series of portraits without names, without contexts. Images that are largely unexplained, nameless, mute.” With this quote, Said managed to capture the feeling of the dominant experience of Palestinians in Western media. Time and time again Palestinians are dehumanized in their depictions- they are symbols of a foreign land that lack identities of their own. The genocide that has been carried over the last year has ensured that the majority of the images most people see of Palestinians are of them being killed. They exist only as martyrs in the consciousness of the West. When Palestinians create art, they shift people’s perspectives, humanize their communities, and demonstrate how multifaceted their people are. Art is resistance because it shares, celebrates, and preserves elements of culture. It is a means of self expression through which the artist can communicate the prevalent hopes and ideas of people within a certain landscape. Palestinians have a long history of using art as a tool of resistance by safeguarding a heritage that Zionist forces seek to destroy.
