For artists, it’s hard to reflect on the past year without thinking of Israel’s genocide in Gaza that has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians by official count or more than 220,000 by realistic estimates.
While art is something to be enjoyed, as it enriches every aspect of our lives, identity and culture, it is also essential to struggle. Art is powerful, it allows us to share emotions and stories with people around the world even if we don’t have a common language. Israel knows this, and that is why it targets all those who have a talent and passion to broadcast messages about the terrible reality of Gaza.
Indeed, Israel seems to make it a tactic in its broader strategy of ethnic cleansing to wipe out Palestinians who inspire not only their own people, but all who wage a war against injustice.
Painters, illustrators, poets, photographers, writers, designers … so many talented Palestinians have already been killed. It is our duty to ensure that they are not forgotten. They are not numbers and their work should be remembered, always.
We need to tell people about Heba Zagout, the 39-year-old painter, poet and novelist, killed along with two of her children in an Israeli airstrike. Her rich paintings of Palestinian women and Jerusalem’s holy sites were her way of speaking to the “outside world.”
We must mention the name of renowned painter and art educator, Fathi Ghaben, whose beautiful works capturing the Palestinian resistance should be seen by all.
We should learn the words of Refaat Alareer, one of Gaza’s most brilliant writers and teachers, who lectured at the Islamic University of Gaza.
We must talk about the beauty in the art of Mahasen al-Khatib, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in the Jabalia refugee camp. In her latest illustration, she honored 19-year-old Shaban al-Dalou, who was burned to death in the Israeli attack on the Al-Aqsa hospital compound.
We must also remind the world of writer Yousef Dawwas, novelist Noor al-Din Hajjaj, poet Mohammed Ahmed, designer Walaa al-Faranji and photographer Majd Arandas.
However, making sure that their stories and works are not hidden also means that we must take action, wherever we are. Honoring these martyrs and celebrating their art requires us to go beyond words.
Some in the art world already know this. They have joined the resistance within art spaces and ensured that Israel’s crimes are denounced on their platforms. During the past year there have been many acts of solidarity and courage.
When London’s Barbican Center canceled Indian writer Pankaj Mishra’s lecture on the genocide in Palestine in February, art collectors Lorenzo Legarda Leviste and Fahad Mayet pulled Loretta Pettway’s artwork from the center’s gallery.
“It is the duty of all of us to oppose institutional violence and demand transparency and accountability behind it… We will never accept censorship, oppression and racism within its walls,” they wrote.
In March, Egyptian visual artist Mohamed Abla returned his Goethe Medal, awarded for outstanding artistic achievement by Germany’s Goethe Institut, in protest of the German government’s complicity in the Israeli genocide.
Before the opening of the Venice Biennale in April, more than 24,000 artists from around the world – including previous Biennale participants and recipients of prestigious awards – signed an open letter calling on the organizers to exclude Israel from the event. An Israeli artist eventually decided not to open her exhibition.
In September, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri refused to accept an award from the Noguchi Museum in New York after firing three employees who wore Palestinian keffiyeh scarves.
Earlier this month, artist Jasleen Kaur, who received the prestigious Turner Prize, used her acceptance speech to condemn the genocide, calling for a free Palestine, an arms embargo and expressing solidarity with the Palestinians. She stood in solidarity with those who protested outside Tate Britain in London, where the event took place, calling on it to divest itself of funding and projects linked to the Israeli government.
“I want to echo the calls of the protesters outside. A protest made up of artists, cultural workers, Tate staff, students, with whom I stand strongly,” said Kaur. “This is not a radical request, this should not jeopardize an artist’s career or safety.”
Despite these acts of solidarity, the vicious censorship, inaction, suppression and witch-hunt of art related to Palestine has not abated over the past 12 months.
In January, the Indiana University art museum canceled an exhibit by Palestinian artist Samia Halaby.
In May, the city of Vail in Colorado canceled the artist residency of Danielle SeeWalker, a Native American artist who had compared the plight of Palestinians to that of Native Americans.
In July, the Royal Academy of Arts removed two artworks from their summer show of young artists because they were related to Israel’s war in Gaza. This came after the pro-Israel Board of Deputies of British Jews sent him a letter about the artwork.
In November, the Altonal festival in Hamburg canceled an exhibition of artwork produced by children in Gaza after social media posts attacking it.
These are just a few examples of the massive censorship Palestinian art, artists and creators who have expressed their solidarity with Palestine have faced over the past year. The silence and whitewashing within the cultural spaces has also happened at the institutional level.
In the UK, Arts Council England (ACE) warned arts institutions that “political statements” could adversely affect funding deals. This was revealed following a freedom of information request by the Equity trade union, which also revealed that ACE and the Department of Media, Culture and Sport (DMCS) even met about “reputational risk relating to the Israel-Gaza conflict”.
Some have pointed out the contradiction of ACE’s actions, given that it openly expressed solidarity with Ukraine in 2022 after the Russian invasion. But it is not just ACE that has demonstrated blatant double standards in its handling of the carnage in Gaza.
The brilliant Palestinian artist Basma Alsharif perfectly articulated the institutional hypocrisy in her letter to the Neoliberal Intoxicated Art World.
She wrote: “I hope this genocide finds you well. What exactly are you doing these days? Why did it take you months to write a statement, if you did at all? Why don’t you just shut it down? Why are you unable to boycott Israel the way you have Russia, the way you did Apartheid South Africa? Have you seen the number of statements there? Open letters? The call for strikes? How many hashtags did you all put up that it would take to atone for your sins?”
There are no excuses for complacency about the genocide in Gaza. The Palestinian people face extermination and our responsibility to them is to ensure that our governments, institutions and industry are not left alone until they cut ties with Israel, stop silencing those who speak out against its crimes and commit to the liberation of Palestine .
I urge all those in the art world – a pocket of which was so vividly represented in the protest outside the Tate when Kaur was awarded – to remember the words of the American author James Baldwin:
“The precise role of the artist, then, is to illuminate that darkness, to light the way through that great forest, so that we, in all our work, may not forget his purpose, which is ultimately to create the world. a more human settlement.”
States and their institutions can use the scramble for funding and platforms to suppress our expression of solidarity, but in the end they will not win. Those who accept for their own personal and professional gain may try to convince themselves that this movement will die down and the issue will be forgotten, but until Palestine is free – and it will be – we are holding the bills, we are observing the absence. , we are hearing silence about Israel’s genocide in Gaza. It’s not too late to stand on the right side of history.
A happy new year will only be possible when Palestinians and all those facing oppression are free.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
