Despite the dire conditions in Gaza, Palestinian artists have continued to create art and several have even managed to transfer their works out of the war-torn territory to neighbouring Jordan. These pieces are now on view until March 2025 at the Darat al Funun art centre in Amman as part of the exhibition Under Fire.
The show features works by Basel El Maqousi, Majed Shala, Raed Issa and Sohail Salem, the co-founders of Shababeek and Eltiqa, two art spaces that were once the backbone of Gaza’s vibrant art scene but have been destroyed by Israeli attacks.
Facing a shortage of materials during the war, the artists have crafted their pieces from school notebooks, medical packaging and old paper, using pen and even natural dyes made from tea, pomegranates and hibiscus. “This is very important work because it is salvaged genocidal artwork, and it is original,” says the Palestinian artist Shareef Sarhan, who also co-founded Shababeek in Gaza City.
Sarhan, who was outside Gaza with his family when the war began and is currently working on art projects in Europe, tells The Art Newspaper that the exhibition marks a departure from the artists’ usual styles due to the scarcity of materials.
“Majed usually uses acrylics, but now he is just sketching. Basel is using regular paper and some watercolours. Sohail is using children’s notebooks, and Raed is working with any paper and natural colours around him,” he explains. “Every artist in this exhibition is sharing a different story through their work.”
While the Amman exhibition is a rare opportunity to see original works created by Gaza’s artists during the ongoing 14-month war, there has been a broader wave of global solidarity with Palestinian artists. Galleries worldwide have mounted exhibitions showcasing their art—whether in the form of prints or earlier original pieces—and amplifying their stories of loss, resilience and hope. Beyond raising international awareness of the artists’ plight, Sarhan says that some of these initiatives offer financial support by generating sales for artists who have gone without income for more than a year.
In September, a civic gallery in Japan’s Hiratsuka City hosted a five-day show by artists from Gaza. The following month, Chicago’s Co-Prosperity cultural centre held Landscapes from Under the Rubble: Destroyed Artworks from Gaza featuring works by eight Gaza-based artists, including some who were able to escape through Rafah on the southern border with Egypt earlier this year. Barcelona’s Potassi K19 gallery recently unveiled I Will Write Our Will Above the Clouds, a touring display of digital images capturing displaced and destroyed works by Gaza’s artists. In London, P21 Gallery recently showed works by 25 Palestinian artists—including those still in Gaza and others who recently evacuated—in Art of Palestine: From the River to the Sea, organised by the Palestine Museum US.
The Zurich-based curator Reyelle Niemann has brought prints by 31 Palestinian artists, including 14 artists from Gaza, together for Gaza Remains the Story-This is Not an Exhibition, which runs until 5 January at Friedensgasse art space.
Having travelled to the Palestinian territories numerous times and built strong ties with the local artistic community, Niemann says she felt compelled to organise an exhibition. Together with the Palestinian artist, lecturer and cultural producer Yara Kassem Mahajena, she began reaching out to Gaza-based artists to bring the project to life.
“Strong artistic positions speak for themselves, making life circumstances, dreams and hardships more tangible; [they] provoke emotions, thoughts and conversations,” Niemann says.
The title This Is Not An Exhibition is borrowed from an ongoing exhibition at the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit in the West Bank, which showcases original works by Gaza artists that were gathered from private individuals, institutions and organisations after the war began. The Palestinian Museum has also developed a “ready-to-download” exhibition called Gaza Remains the Story which is available to touring venues upon request. Niemann’s exhibition includes some of this work.
Public reactions to the Zurich exhibition have been overwhelmingly positive, Niemann says, with visitors expressing appreciation for the opportunity to see alternative images of Gaza from those disseminated on social media, and to feel a sense of connection through art.
Earlier this autumn, the French artist Nicole Pfund exhibited prints by Gaza artists she had met more than 20 years ago in the small rural location of Beauquesne, France. “They really need help, like all the citizens of Gaza. It is so horrible what is happening, and with the silence of our countries,” Pfund says. She hopes to organise another Palestinian exhibition near Paris early next year.
“Before this genocide, people and students didn’t care much about Palestinians in Gaza because they didn’t have any information,” Shareef Sarhan says. “But now, it’s different. We see a lot of solidarity, including from people in the art sector.” Besides visiting exhibitions, Sarhan urges people to consider purchasing works by Palestinian artists at this time of year as Christmas gifts.
Majed Shala has turned to scraps of paper, watercolours, and ink pens to document the daily realities of war.
courtesy Darat al Funun
