Magazine

The Mosaic Shattered: Exile & Resistance (1949-1986)

Akram Al-Ashqar’s film First Picture (2006) follows a young boy, Nour, who was born in an Israeli prison. Nour, meaning “light” in Arabic, was aptly named for the hope and comfort he brought to the girl prisoners in their dark cells, illuminating their spirits in the midst of despair. The camera films Nour’s first steps as he exits the detention center after spending his first years confined within its opaque walls. Nour’s mother, Manal, was detained while pregnant for participating in the resistance against the occupation in the Tulkarm Camp for Palestinian Refugees - what was meant to be a temporary site for displaced Palestinians from the 1948 Nakba that eventually edified into a long-lasting camp built on shoddy infrastructure and condemned to the poverty of those stripped of their land and possessions and forced to flee.

Neon American Anthem (red) is a participatory installation designed to activate museum or institutional space. The work offers visitors a place to kneel and follow the directive of a neon sign on the wall that reads: I’ve composed a new American national anthem: take a knee and scream until you can’t breathe.

This text highlights two works by Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme that explore Palestinian identity, memory, and resistance. Collapse (2009) examines the fragmentation of collective memory through archival footage and poetic visuals, emphasizing the political power of broken histories. And Yet My Mask is Powerful (2016) reimagines ruins as sites of resilience, blending ancient artifacts and contemporary crises to question whether destruction can inspire renewal. Both works confront colonial violence and the enduring cycles of erasure, offering powerful meditations on defiance and reimagination.

Daniela Ortiz is an artist and activist whose artistic work materialises anti-colonial and anti-imperial struggle into a diverse range of media. The ABC’s of Racist Europe is an illustrated children’s book with the aim of serving as a pedagogical tool against the rise of fascism and racism within European colonial institutions.

Written by Richard Andrew Cahill. This article was first published in the Jerusalem Quarterly in the Summer 2009 issue. It is republished with permission.

Written by Shahd Abusalama. Excerpt from the book “Gaza on Screen”. Copyright Duke University Press, 2023.

This analysis paper explores a paradigm shift that alQaws has been exploring over the past decade of its grassroots community organizing, which centers the experiences of queer Palestinians.

Not Gay as in Happy but Queer as in Free Palestine is a statement that first appeared on placards in Palestinian queer solidarity marches around the globe, and later visualised by artist and designer Marwan Kaabour during Pride Month in 2021.

The Palestinian village of Tantura located south of Haifa along the Mediterranean, was occupied by Israeli forces 75 years ago, on 22-23 May 1948.

The short experimental video examines the network of apparatuses that Israel used to orchestrate its emergence.

Featuring in Sleeping with a Vengeance, Dreaming of a Life, curated by Ruth Noack, Yellow Brick, Athens; Lítost, Prague; Institute for Provocation, Beijing; Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart; and in Transcultural Emancipation, FLUC, Vienna.