Join us on a tour led by Rina Khatib, Marah Khalifeh, and Ahmed Zayyad of the museum’s artistic demonstration for Gaza which includes three spaces carefully curated to respond to this horrific historical moment. The first is This is Not an Exhibition, which includes more than 260 artworks by over 100 Palestinian Gazan artists. The second is a solo exhibition in the glass gallery Residential Block by the artist Rafat Asad. As for the third space, it is entitled The Oranges Remember | Nuha Batshon: When Memory Becomes an Act of Reconstruction, it is an ethnographic display in the Museum lobby of traditional thobes (dresses).

Two walls are parallel, contending with each other, just like the river and the sea. They are painted indigo blue, as inspired by the indigo plant dye for which the village of Majdal, located between Gaza and Yaffa, was known: there, women used the dye to mark their thobes to indicate they were in a state of mourning the loss of a loved one.

Artworks are being systematically destroyed as part of this war. Through scrutiny of the condition artists are living with and the fate of galleries and art institutions -such as Eltiqa Art Gallery and Shababek for contemporary art- we see what is devastating and catastrophic. We become witnesses to what the Palestinian fine arts movement has been forcibly deprived of: the inconceivable loss of artists who are now martyrs, and of the long years of creativity and innovation they had put into every work of art they created.