by NILOFAR ABSAR
“Art helps us identify with one another and expands our notion of ‘we’ – from the local to the global.”
– Olafur Eliasson
Sitting in India, roughly 4,500 km away from Palestine, is it possible for us to witness and be empathetic to the daily trials that Palestinians face for basic survival? As a person who has actively followed human rights violations by the Israeli apartheid regime in Palestine, I often find myself overwhelmed and consequently numb at the face of a vast repository of information available on the internet covering this issue.
This is when I resort to art. It is common knowledge that good art is supposed to be provocative. Something that forces you to confront how you truly feel about something. Away from the complexities of academic language, images that come with trigger warnings and news articles that must abide by strict reporting policies, the world of art plays an important role in resistance – not just locally, but on a global level.
I have never been to Palestine, but the murals painted on the concrete West bank barrier by an anonymous artist have helped me forge a deeper understanding of the horrors of life under occupation.
He calls himself an open-air prison artist on his Instagram page. He uses the alias ‘Cake$ Stencils’ to shield his identity in fear of being banned from travelling to Palestine by the authorities. The visuals are striking – his art portrays the struggles of Palestinians with bleak images capturing the daily lives of children under occupation.
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