Artists + Allies x Hebron Launches Union Magazine

Artists + Allies x Hebron has launched Union Magazine on 19 December 2023 - a new publication dedicated to platforming the work of Palestinian artists. Its aim is to be a global loudspeaker from Palestine and to offer space for others to show their solidarity to the cause through creative output. In light of the recent climate of censorship in the West, the magazine intends to create a way for cultural workers to be able to discuss Palestine in a variety of forms and outputs.

AAH is a residency and project in the divided city of Hebron run by its members. The city is a famous hotspot of Israeli settler violence within the occupied West Bank with frequent clashes between the Palestinian population and the settlers set on expansion. The city is criss-crossed by barbed wire and checkpoints as well as heavy surveillance infrastructure meant to track every move of Palestinian civilians. This security system has become a place for tests of facial recognition software that detects when people are to be arrested.

The magazine is founded by AAH co-initiatiator Adam Broomberg, a long-time Collecteurs community member. Broomberg has been featured in interviews on Collecteurs and has been recognized as a notable initiator of change in Collecteurs’ Substance 100. For the past two years Broomberg has been visiting Palestine to work on a project to photograph Palestinian olive trees, some of which are up to 4,500 years old and that are continuously under threat of being cut down by occupation forces and settlers.

Co-founder Issa Amro is a Palestinian activist who has advocated for non-violent resistance and civil disobedience for over 15 years. He has been arrested numerous times both by Israeli forces as well as the Palestinian Authority and has initiated and organized major non-violent groups and campaigns including Youth Against Settlements.