| Gaza Strip's artists seek to rebuild hope in a society ruined by conflict |
Gaza City: The small, childlike drawings depicting scenes of everyday life are sketched on torn pieces of brown paper, ripped from the bags of cement given to families whose houses were destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in last year's war in Gaza.
There are 400 paintings and the artist, Majdal Nateel, says they are not designed to represent all of the 495 children killed in the 50-day conflict with Israel, nor the thousands more maimed or the 300,000 children in need of psycho-social support after living through at least one, if not three, wars in five years.
Instead, the 28-year-old artist says, they represent the lost hopes and dreams of those children. What could have been if they had lived.
"The idea was to paint the dreams of children who were killed in the last war … to show them playing, painting, drawing, flying kites, doing the everyday things they would be doing if they had not died," Nateel says from the tiny studio inside her home in Gaza City.
During the war, in which United Nations figures indicate 1483 Palestinian civilians were killed and more than 500,000 of Gaza's 1.9 million population were displaced, Nateel was volunteering with a UN shelter for some who were forced to flee their homes, working with children living through unimaginable fear.
"When the war finished, the talk was all about rebuilding Gaza but there was no talk of rebuilding the people," she says as her two young daughters play in the next room. "I am not a fan of political art but the way we are forced to live now has pushed me to deal with it in my art.
"During the war we were waiting for death ... it took me a very long time to recover.
"But it never changes, I still see the beauty of Gaza everywhere I look – a few days ago we went to see the boats on the harbour and it gave me new inspiration to paint," she says.
We are drinking coffee on her balcony and looking across to one of the few old buildings left standing in her neighbourhood – its large, old stones and arched windows in contrast to the box-like apartments nearby.
"I ask people to see the truth of what happened here during the war – my work is about lost dreams but there is also hurt in each drawing." Even the canvas Nateel used for If I Wasn't There – made from cement bags – is a political statement in itself.
At least 18,000 houses were destroyed or severely damaged in Israeli airstrikes or mortar fire and few have since been repaired or rebuilt 18 months after the war ended.
A chronic shortage of cement – caused in part by the severe restrictions Israel places on the import of cement and other building materials into Gaza as part of its years-long blockade of the Hamas-controlled territory — has been one of the main causes of the shamefully slow process.
As Gaza heads into a second winter with many families still living in the rubble of their destroyed homes, the scars of the war, physical and mental, are visible from north to south, she says.
After a successful showing of her exhibition in London that she was unable to attend because Israel would not issue her with a permit to leave Gaza, If I Wasn't There is heading to New York in February and this time Nateel is travelling with it.
Her visit to pick up her visa from the US consulate in Jerusalem – just 90 kilometres from Gaza – was the first time she had ever been to the city that is holy to Muslims, Jews and Christians.
Even sourcing the paint for her artwork is an exercise in patience and persistence.
She carefully conserves the colours she brought in Italy three years ago and those her husband, also an artist, brought back from France, until the next time one of them gets a permit to leave Gaza, where the borders are tightly controlled by Israel and Egypt.
The art scene in Gaza – although still vibrant despite the wars and the abject poverty in which so many of its residents live – is struggling after eight years of Hamas rule and the decision of Western governments to isolate the group, say two other artists, Maha al-Daya, 39 and Ayman Eissa, 41.
The couple, both established artists with strikingly different styles, work from their Gaza City apartment in between caring for their three school-aged children.
Both mostly exhibit outside Gaza, saying the dire economic situation facing most people means art comes way down on the list purchases for families.
"Their priority is not art, their priority is survival," Eissa says.
In addition, the audience is now limited.
"If we exhibit here, the only people who will see the art now are college students and fellow artists," Daya says. "We are ambitious, we want to push our art out into the world and keep developing our work." She says she was unable to paint for weeks after the most recent war.
"During the war we were waiting for death ... it took me a very long time to recover.
"But it never changes, I still see the beauty of Gaza everywhere I look – a few days ago we went to see the boats on the harbour and it gave me new inspiration to paint," she says.
We are drinking coffee on her balcony and looking across to one of the few old buildings left standing in her neighbourhood – its large, old stones and arched windows in contrast to the box-like apartments nearby.
"I am scared for this building," she says. "I am afraid it will disappear before I have painted all of its character … in the next war it may not survive."
As Gaza struggles to recover from the 2014 war, artists have also taken to the streets of al-Shati Refugee Camp in an attempt to brighten people's lives as they face a second winter living amongst the rubble.
Facing the beautiful but polluted Mediterranean Sea, al-Shati - or Beach - Camp is emblematic of the suffering of Gaza.
Young boys steer thin horses pulling heavily laden carts along the waterfront, the buildings marked by years of war.
Amidst it all, local artists have created a landscape of coloured walls to replace the grey of the refugee camp, a splash of hope alongside the decades-long despair.
Six months ago the World Bank announced Gaza's unemployment rate – at 43 per cent – was the highest in the world. Nearly 80 per cent of its estimated 1.9 million residents are relying on social security benefits and 40 per cent live below the poverty line.
In al-Shati Camp, concrete walls have been decorated with bright green, blue, purple and pink colours, old tyres have been converted into flower pots and window frames brightly decorated.
Created by local artists, it is another attempt by the local population to ease the suffering of Gaza residents, to paint over the years of war and conflict and create some hope for the future.
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