A year after October 7th, my drawings will not stop
A year has passed, a terrible year where each day bled into the next without respite. Every day we hoped it would all stop, that they would finally sign that cursed agreement. But it didn’t happen.
A year has passed, a terrible year where each day bled into the next without respite. Every day we hoped it would all stop, that they would finally sign that cursed agreement. But it didn’t happen. Every day we called for a ceasefire, and every time, we were silenced. Our children protested in universities, and I, as a professor at the Bologna Academy, also protested. We were pushed aside, punished for our dissent.
I can say that every day, when I look at myself in the mirror, I know I have done everything within my power, though I've achieved little. I’ve drawn, traveled, exhibited, and shared messages of peace. I’ve met and embraced many remarkable people who want a better world, one without weapons, without children being killed.
Now, as this new October 7th approaches, even more threatening and violent than the last, with planes bombing Lebanon, Iran attacking Israel, and Israel becoming more like a rabid, uncontrollable wolf, I feel exhausted. But I will not give up. You will not stop my hand.
Portraits of journalists killed in Palestine
Since October 7, 2023, I have started drawing the journalists who were being killed, never imagining that it would turn into such an immense body of work. The drawings are accompanied by texts from CPJ, the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York, which I had the pleasure of visiting at their headquarters. Here you can read their latest report.
Actions
On December 10th, a vigil was held at Jose Rizal Park in Seattle to honor the 63 journalists and media workers whose lives were lost in the recent conflict between Israel and Hamas. My portraits served as a remembrance of their faces.
Here's a compelling article by Alex Garland on the South Seattle Emerald, featuring photos by Susan Fried.
Calls for another ceasefire in Gaza continued on Saturday, December 17, in Atlanta, United States, at Freedom Park, where a vigil was held for journalists killed in the Israel-Hamas war. The ceremony was organized by journalists based in Atlanta. Imam Salah Wazir read the names of all 64 journalists killed in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, as confirmed by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
January thirteenth, in Naples, young journalists, artists and the organizers of the Falastin Hurra exhibition gathered to honor the over 80 journalists killed since October 7 and hold a small vigil for them and their memory. Photo Ciro Giso
I am truly excited about this mural that has been created in Atlanta by the Refaat Mobile Library group, especially because it all started from my portrait of Refaat Alareer. Thank you to Fiza Pirani for involving me. Refaat Mobile Library is a volunteer-run traveling library in Atlanta, created in honor of the martyred Palestinian poet and professor Refaat Alareer.
Most of their community volunteer work consists of bringing the library to solidarity events in the city—from art builds to teach-ins, to market fundraisers, and more—along with organizing backend tasks, various requests such as printing, book requests, and fundraising. Refaat Mobile Library is sending 100% of all proceeds donated to Refaat Mobile Library via Venmo and Cash App to Gaza Funds, a mutual aid project connecting people to crowdfunding campaigns for individuals and families in Gaza.
Drawn reportage
Since April 19, I began to closely follow the protests at Columbia University in New York, drawing day by day what was happening. The result was the creation of a narrative through the drawings of what transpired during those weeks.
The 2024 Columbia University pro-Palestinian campus occupation is an ongoing protest involving pro-Palestinian students at Columbia University in New York City.
The following text is taken from the Wikipedia page: “2024 Columbia University protests“. A page that has been updated in real-time and that I believe is the most reliable and impartial. All the drawings you will see were drawn from the 17th to the 1st of May 2024 and are available for free download here.
At the end of the text, you will find my analysis and the reasons for this work that I published on Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN)
ps. I, of course, stand with the students.
Here are all the drawings.
Exhibitions - In the Crosshairs of Memory
June 12-22 Squadro Galleria Stamperia d’Arte
Via Nazario Sauro, 27B, 40121 Bologna (Italy)
Since the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent ruthless retaliation by Israel, Gianluca Costantini has been creating portraits of journalists killed in the Gaza Strip. Actively collaborating with the CPJ Committee to Protect Journalists in New York, he has built a visual memorial day by day.
Gianluca Costantini’s visual project, by an artist and political activist internationally known for his relentless effort to give a face and iconic presence to the victims of abuse, does not aim to restore what has been lost, as that is impossible. Instead, it is a votive offering, a gesture of care for the memory of those who are no longer with us and who had chosen, as their task on this earth, to bear witness.
The portraits have already been used in protest actions in Atlanta, New York, Berlin, Seattle, and Naples, as happens with many of the artist’s projects. The drawings become material for communication, in the hands of citizens who move with their bodies in very distant places to demand truth and justice, to seek answers, and, in this case, to call for a ceasefire.
The act of drawing the faces of those behind the camera, carefully seeking a photo from which to create a portrait (not a trivial task, as journalists and media operators are not narcissistically inclined; they are more drawn to others…) is a form of extreme gratitude, a collective ritual of atonement, a tenacious desire to hold on to the face of someone dear to us, even if we never knew them, even if we never will.
September 18-22 DIG Festival
Via Santa Chiara 14, Modena (Italy)
Pubblications
My drawing published in issue no. 4 of The Written Resistance by National Students for Justice in Palestine (National SJP).
Welcome to National Students for Justice in Palestine’s newest initiative: المقاومة المكتوبة (The Written Resistance). Published quarterly, this is the space to platform student experiences and analysis. The Written Resistance is the only newsletter directly serving the student movement, designed to foster discussion and help us unite the student movement for Palestinian liberation.
We encourage you to submit your political analysis, personal essays, opinion pieces, and art, sharing your insights and perspectives as student organizers invested in the international struggle against imperialism and its associated systems of oppression. Issues will be published here digitally, and print editions will be mailed to SJP chapters worldwide. Download Magazine
The “Ceasefire Now” series is available for free download on the website of the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, a decentralized network of 41 artists committed to social, environmental, and political engagement
The “Ceasefire Now” series is available for free download on the website of the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, a decentralized network of 41 artists committed to social, environmental, and political engagement.
I’d like to share my experience with the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, an inspiring network of artists that I have the pleasure of collaborating with, even though I am not a member.
Justseeds is a unique collective, with members working from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. It operates both as a unified collaboration of like-minded printmakers and as a loose collection of creative individuals with unique viewpoints and working methods. This cooperative believes in the transformative power of personal expression in concert with collective action.
To this end, Justseeds produces collective portfolios, contributes graphics to grassroots struggles for justice, works collaboratively both within and outside the co-op, builds large sculptural installations in galleries, and wheatpastes on the streets—all while offering daily support to each other as allies and friends. It’s this spirit of mutual aid and shared commitment to social causes that drew me to collaborate with them.
My portrait of the poet and activist Refaat Alareer was published in the New York-based magazine “Spectre” in issue 9, dedicated to Palestine.
During his career, Alareer taught literature and creative writing at The Islamic University of Gaza and co-founded We Are Not Numbers, an organization that connects experienced international authors with young writers from #Gaza, promoting storytelling as a tool of Palestinian resistance. On December 6, 2023, Alareer lost his life along with his brother, sister, and three children in an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza during the 2023 Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip. The human rights organization Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor released a statement asserting that Alareer was deliberately targeted, “surgically bombed in the entire building,” and that the airstrike occurred after weeks of “death threats Refaat had received online and by phone from Israeli accounts.”
There is no one along the road that leads to Issa Amro’s house, just Israeli soldiers. Palestinian homes in Hebron are surrounded by fences as high as the buildings. For Palestinians here, they are the only way to protect themselves from stone-throwing Israeli settlers and other increasingly frequent attacks in the only city where the settlers and Palestinians live together.
Issa’s house has become a cage. He has walled up every space that opens onto the outside: the windows, the entrance gate, the outdoor space where he used to organize workshops with the children of the neighborhood. He has surrounded his garden with wire mesh and covered the wire mesh with plastic sheets, so as not to be seen. During the a recent raid, Israeli soldiers destroyed the security cameras he had placed at every corner of his property. They damaged the “Free Palestine” sign at the entrance to his house. They forbade him from continuing to host Palestinian children and teenagers for courses and conferences on nonviolence. They even ordered him not to receive any visitors to his own home. Continue
Curate by “The olive tree“. An international collection of art protesting the ongoing genocide of Palestinians.
The Olive Tree Collection published its first issue on July 10, 2024, along with a zine publication. We are not currently accepting submissions, but please stay tuned for future dissemination updates and events, and join our mailing list through the following form: https://forms.gle/n7zoZviK4zBHVvdt9.
We thank you all for your ongoing support with this project. Continue
This is a small part of what I've done this year; to see and read everything, go here.