Displaced Gaza artist turns shelter into gallery of war

This report was contributed by Rizek Abdel Jawad, a photojournalist from Gaza City whose work has previously been featured in these pages, documenting life in the shadow of Israel’s genocidal assault on the besieged territory.

Inside a shelter within a crowded UNRWA school in Gaza City, Palestinian artist Marah Al-Za’anin is engrossed in putting the finishing touches on a new painting before attaching it to the wall of her canvas tent.

The tent is no longer just a temporary shelter for an artist forcibly displaced from her home; it has become a small art gallery documenting, in black and white, the details of Palestinian suffering during two years of war.

Marah sits on the ground, surrounded by paintings held aloft with tape and rudimentary art supplies she painstakingly gathered.

“I didn’t know how to paint seriously before the war,” she says, as she holds a brush and adds the final touches to her last painting. “But it has become my own world, a refuge from fear.”

Al-Za’anin, originally from Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, was forced to flee with her family to a shelter within the UNRWA school in Gaza City after the Israeli army prevented their return to their homes, despite the declared ceasefire.

She says that losing her home and feeling unstable was a huge shock to her, but she tried to transform this harsh reality into a space for artistic expression.

“Painting gave me psychological comfort that helped me resist fear and pain,” she says.

Zaanin’s work is mostly in black and white, a choice she says wasn’t just artistic, but dictated by circumstances.

“Black and white reflect the bitterness of the life we lived,” she explains. “The scarcity of art supplies forced me to use whatever was available.”

She collected ballpoint pens and charcoal from leftover cooking pots. At the entrance to her tent, a number of displaced children gather daily to view her paintings.

Rizek Abdel Jawad is a photojournalist based in Gaza City. To see more of his work, follow him on Instagram and Facebook. He is part of the Connecting Gaza initiative, which helps families in Gaza survive. You can support them by going to www.connectinggaza.org/donate.