“Gaza is here” has been a recurring expression used to report extreme atrocities that have occurred against non-Western territories outside of Palestine. In this comparative reference to the strip of land that, since the 19th century, has been steadily shrinking day by day, we witness something profoundly painful: the Gaza Strip has become almost synonymous with constant Western violence and harassment. In the introduction to The Question of Palestine, published in 1979, Edward Said states:
“We developed extraordinary resistance and had an even more extraordinary national resurgence; we gained the support of all the peoples of the Third World; and, above all, despite being geographically dispersed and fragmented, despite being stripped of our territory, we still remain united as a people, largely because the Palestinian idea (which we articulate from our experience of expropriation and exclusive oppression) has a coherence to which we all respond with undeniable enthusiasm” (XLVIII, 2012)1.
It is evident that Said points to recognition through this relationship of peoples and their bodies that, even though distanced from one another, share similar experiences of interdiction, extradition, or illegality within their own territories. A situation of subalternization that we can translate through the various processes of whitening, epistemicide, gentrification, attempts at extermination, and finally, by the wall, the ultimate device of exclusion. The wall created from the moment a strip of land, like the one extending along the Mediterranean Sea, is defined and filled with earth, rubble, and people who resist under attacks that do not cease.
The exhibition does not dismiss the thought of the wall as a barrier but attempts to go beyond it by considering it as a strip that, despite everything, must be crossed or still erected in protest. As Said says: “dispersed and fragmented, despite being stripped of our territory, we still remain united.” The works gathered here reflect on ways of being, bargaining, and crossing risk.
Khadyg Fares
1 SAID, Edward. The Question of Palestine. Translated by Sonia Midori. São Paulo: Ed. Unesp, 2012.
Exhibition featuring:
Adelaide de Estorvo
Anna Sew Hoy
Basel Abbas e Ruanne Abou-Rahme
Carolina Velasquez
Eric Leite E Sol 1 Na Missão
Flyers For Falastin
Mahmoud Darwish
Maré De Matos
Paulestinos
Rodrigo Lahoud
Stanya Kahn
The New York War Crimes
Yara Osman
