Artists For Palestine: An Ode To Gaza

This story was published as part of Outlook Magazine's 'War And Peace' issue, dated January 11, 2025. To read more stories from the Issue, click here.

Suhad Khatib, a prominent Palestinian artist based in Amman, Jordan, shares how she almost crossed paths with Al-Khateeb. 바카라�The indirect connections with artists from Gaza have left a true impact in my heart. One of them is with a Palestinian artist named Mahasen Al-Khateeb,바카라� she says. 바카라�I didn바카라�t know her in person but I used to follow her page. I knew her friends and they were working on an art workshop for youth in Gaza. They asked me if I would be interested in volunteering some time, and I agreed. They decided to put me in touch with this Palestinian woman in Falasteen who was going to plan the workshop. That woman happened to be Mahasen. In the same week that I was supposed to talk to Mahasen, she was martyred,바카라� Khatib recounts. 바카라�When I was done with my book바카라�which is about martyrs바카라�a Gazan woman came to my studio. She knew Mahasen and was selling some of her works to support her family. I bought most of the works so that I could include them as gifts with my book. So that, everyone who buys my book also gets a gift from Mahasen,바카라� she reminisces.

Unlike Al-Khateeb, Khatib never got a chance to set foot in her homeland. Born in Oman, she has lived in exile across the globe all her life. While her father comes from Lyd, her mother belongs to a village near Tulkarm. 바카라�In 1948, my father had to walk for three days to survive a massacre when he was five years old. That was the last time my father ever saw Falasteen,바카라� she says. She is referring to the Nakba, when Palestinian Arabs were violently displaced from their land, as Israel declared its independence.

For Khatib, art came to her as soon as she learned to hold a pen. When asked about the significance of art during a genocide, she wonders. 바카라�What does it mean to continue to paint during a genocide? It becomes a question like every other question: what does it mean to continue living your life during a genocide, to continue to drink a sip of water while your people are deprived of water? I don바카라�t know.바카라�

Diyala Zada, a Syrian-British artist based in Cairo, believes that art serves as a healing process and helps her grow stronger. 바카라�For me, creating art during a genocide is a way to express and relieve the intense emotions I feel about what바카라�s happening. It바카라�s also a means of preserving memories and sending messages to future generations,바카라� she says. Like Khatib, Zada too has consistently been creating art that talks about Palestine. Being a children바카라�s book illustrator, a lot of her illustrations are like children바카라�s art바카라�but no child must have to hear the stories they tell. Her work reflects the pain that stems from belonging to a war-torn homeland. When asked what she thinks about the current state of affairs in Syria, Zada says, 바카라�What I see now is the hope to rebuild our tired Syria after 50 years of oppression and the tyranny that destroyed humanity and dignity. I hope we can stay on the right path and overcome the lasting traces of this injustice.바카라� She is aware that the wait will be long and the journey won바카라�t be easy.

Khatib and Zada are both part of a pool of artists, whose art has consistently talked about the ongoing massacre in Gaza at the hands of Israel. Their works are an important testament to the kind of stories that have been wiped out by Israel since October last year. Often, narrating these stories has come at great personal cost. 바카라�I dedicated my life, not just my work, to art. And for art to be worth giving your life to, it has to be art of meaning,바카라� says Khatib. 바카라�It becomes a choice whether to allow people to silence you or just tell the story as is and leave it to those closest to you with the hope that one day, the world will find meaning in them, outside of all of the silencing and tyranny. I was fired from my job because of my work and I바카라�ve lost friends. Some of my friends were killed, some were imprisoned and I바카라�m in a constant state of exile. I had to move countries to be able to continue doing my work and continue to be a freethinker, to liberate myself, little by little, from the Empire,바카라� she says. 바카라�But I learn from my family. When I ask my father about the massacres that they went through, and the extreme poverty they overcame after the Nakba in 1948, he says something that I hear a lot of Palestinians in Gaza say today: 바카라�What we went through is nothing when compared to what others went through.바카라� This is how we Palestinians move through life.바카라�

Such cross-cultural conversations about Palestine and art are now finding a footing in India too. Small but steady groups of artists are coming together across the country to spread awareness about Gaza through their art. But the initiative doesn바카라�t stop there. They are also pooling together their artworks to mobilise funds to help families in Gaza. Meghna Prakash, a poet who runs an Instagram page called 바카라�Artist Dialogue바카라�, turned to mutual aid when she felt that raising funds single-handedly wasn바카라�t sufficient. 바카라�Initially, I had been raising money myself for ten families in Gaza in the past year. I realised that it was really hard because the money was never consistent and barely enough to support the families,바카라� she says. Given the drastic inflation in North Gaza, a family can sustain merely for two days with 150 US dollars. 바카라�The scale of the money needed was huge and we were barely scraping it. I felt like it wasn바카라�t a feasible way to go forward. I know many incredibly talented people and it made sense for all of us to pool in our resources and do a mutual aid together.바카라� Prakash and her friends have evolved a thorough process of verifying the Palestinian families they choose to aid. From vetting ID cards to conducting video calls and checking who handles their funding pages from other countries, the process is intended to ensure that donors can trust the initiative. 바카라�Many of the NGOs and grassroots organisations in Gaza are not reaching the families that I am in touch with. They바카라�re completely reliant on Instagram, which has been censoring them by shadow banning their accounts and blocking them. It바카라�s brutal because that바카라�s the only way they can get access to any funds. We know that we have less capacity so we are just trying to help 10-11 families to get through the days and support them till they reach stability,바카라� she says. Since October 10, she has been able to raise more than ten lakh rupees for ten Gazan families.

Being an artist has also helped Khatib forge new solidarities across the world. She describes the community around her as 바카라�Hadina바카라�, which means 바카라�incubator바카라� in Arabic. 바카라�The kind of love and admiration I get from around the world, not just from Palestinians, is incredible. An artist in Sudan started telling me the stories of Sudanese murders. He studied them the way I do, because he was inspired by my studies. Someone sent me a little illustration this morning by their six-year-old niece, who drew me because she visited my studio once and was in awe of my work. I became one of her heroes apparently,바카라� she says, joyfully. 바카라�It바카라�s not just a connection for me but a conversation that has been going on between artists in Africa, in Asia and everything in between. My conversation with them is much more intellectually honest and I never feel like I am alone in this world.바카라�

Neha Shetty, an illustrator who goes by the username 바카라�That Zany Martian바카라� on Instagram, is one of the contributors to 바카라�Artist Dialogue바카라�. When asked how it occurred to her to use art to raise funds for Gaza, she says, 바카라�As an artist, one of my main purposes is to serve the collective. Because art and design have a way to go under the radar of algorithmic censorship, if done right, I thought it would be a great way to drive funds to help families, without having to go though the usual roadblocks that the non-art calls for funds were getting.바카라� Pooling resources together has helped many budding artists in finding a way to contribute towards raising funds for Gaza. Paule, or 바카라�Madpaule Diaries바카라�, thinks that most artists are not really good at raising funds independently, especially when it comes to art with dissent. That바카라�s where a collective like 바카라�Artist Dialogue바카라� becomes crucial. Mitali Panganti, or 바카라�Moonclay_insta바카라� agrees. While attempting to raise funds on her own, Panganti encountered a lot of censorship on Instagram, which decreased the reach of her artwork among her followers. But being a part of the collective helped her showcase her art towards organising funds for Gazan families.

Artists for Palestine, another budding collective on Instagram, also works towards bringing together digital artists and illustrators who wish to contribute in organising mutual aid for Gaza. When asked about what kind of future such an initiative can have, given the deteriorating situation in Gaza in the past year, they say, 바카라�The role of an artist is not just to highlight what바카라�s important but also to instil a proactive approach to problems. Worsening of the situation, especially with the targeted attacks on organisations providing aid in Gaza, demands that we act in larger numbers than before. The collective aim is to inspire more people to act rather than lose hope.바카라� Prakash also holds a similar view about the future of 바카라�Artist Dialogue바카라�. 바카라�I don바카라�t think an initiative like this can have an end game anytime soon. I know that once we have put these families to safety, there will be others in need. We will keep going till we need to keep going. We are trying to create a model that is replicable. We want as many people as possible to replicate this. I바카라�m just talking about ten-eleven families, but there are thousands of families like this, who need mutual aid support. So, everyone needs to do their bit,바카라� she says.

While financial support is the need of the hour, it is also imperative to ask whether art can disturb the status quo. Does art really have the power to outrage people enough to question their governments? Paule, whose work embodies significant political commentary, believes so. 바카라�Art records history like no politician or media can write. It gives power to the coming generations and becomes the language of people beyond borders,바카라� he says. 바카라�Artists don바카라�t sugarcoat or sensationalise. Instead, they hand over a mirror to the society and make them realise how each one of us is responsible for the chaos and injustice and how important it is to speak up,바카라� he adds. Paule has been subjected to extensive censorship for his works, leading to a restricted reach and removal of posts for so-called violations by Instagram. The solution, he feels, is to work around the loopholes. Asked if his artistic style makes him vulnerable to State surveillance, he says, 바카라�Art and vulnerability go hand in hand. But we are humans and sometimes we cannot look away. People go through the worst during wars and genocides and when I think of that, everything else seems like a luxury. Governments should be answerable to us, not the other way round. How can anyone take away your right to live with dignity?바카라�

Khatib, on the other hand, believes that art is often confused with propaganda. 바카라�I know that art has the power to change people and to document stories. But art is not propaganda. Propaganda has the power to outrage people against governments. What true art does is remind people of the need to resist oppression, not to be outraged,바카라� she believes. 바카라�I think that바카라�s why despite all of the assassinations, imprisonment and silencing, Palestinians have been able to birth real artists, who remind them of the need to resist, to remain, to exist in this world. Palestinian artists give humanity the meaning of art outside the dull peripheries of Western art바카라�a lot of which has been governmental projects like Jackson Pollock. Palestinians still have artists like Ghassan Kanafani and Naji al-Ali, who remind humanity of the necessity of resistance.바카라�

(This appeared in the print as 'Soul Of My Soul')