2024 was a year of anti-Palestinian censorship and active rebel arts | Opinions

For artists, it’s hard to reflect on the past year without thinking about Israel’s genocide in Gaza that killed more than 45,000 Palestinians by official count or more 220,000 for realistic estimates.

While art is something to be enjoyed, as it enriches every aspect of our lives, identity and culture, it is also central to the struggle. Art is powerful, it allows us to share emotions and stories with people around the world even if we don’t share a common language. Israel knows this, and that is why it targets everyone who has the talent and passion to deliver messages about the terrifying reality of Gaza.

Indeed, Israel seems to be making a tactic in its broader strategy of ethnic cleansing to wipe out the Palestinians who inspire not only their own people, but everyone who makes a fight against injustice.

Painters, illustrators, poets, photographers, writers, designers… so many talented Palestinians have already been killed. It is incumbent upon us to ensure that they are not forgotten. They are not numbers, and their work must be remembered, always.

We want to tell people about Heba Zagout, the 39-year-old painter, poet and novelist, killed with two of her children in an Israeli airstrike. His rich paintings of Palestinian women and the holy sites of Jerusalem were his way of speaking to the “outside world.”

We must mention the name of famous painter and art educator, Fathi Ghaben, whose beautiful works that capture the Palestinian resistance should be seen by everyone.

We have to teach the words of Refaat Alareerone of Gaza’s most brilliant writers and professors who lectured at the Islamic University of Gaza.

We will talk about the beauty in the art of Mahasen al-Khatibwho was killed by an Israeli airstrike on the Jabalia refugee camp. In his latest illustration, he honored 19-year-old Shaban al-Dalou, who burned to death in the Israeli attack on the Al-Aqsa Hospital compound.

We must also remember the world of the writer Yousef Dawwas, the novelist Noor al-din Hajjaj, the poet Muhamed Ahmed, the designer. Not even al-Faranjiand photographer Majd Arandas.

However, ensuring that their stories and works are not erased also means that we need to take action, wherever we are. Honoring these martyrs and celebrating their art requires going beyond words.

Some in the art world already know this. They joined the resistance in the art spaces and ensured that the crimes of Israel are denounced on their platforms. There have been many acts of solidarity and bravery throughout the past year.

When London’s Barbican Center canceled Indian writer Pankaj Mishra’s lecture on the genocide in Palestine in February, art collectors. Lorenzo Legarda Leviste and Fahad Mayet removed Loretta Pettway’s artwork from the downtown gallery.

“It is up to all of us to confront institutional violence, and demand transparency and accountability in its wake… We will never accept censorship, repression and racism within its walls,” they wrote.

In March, Egyptian visual artist Mohamed Abla returned his Goethe Medal, awarded for outstanding artistic achievement by Germany’s Goethe Institut, in protest of the German government’s complicity in the Israeli genocide.

Before the opening of the Venice Biennale in April, more than 24,000 artists from around the world – including previous Biennale participants and prestigious prize winners – signed an open letter calling on the organizers to exclude Israel from the event . An Israeli artist has finally decided not to open his exhibition.

In September, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri refused to accept an award from New York’s Noguchi Museum after firing three employees for wearing Palestinian keffiyeh scarves.

At the beginning of the month, artist Jasleen Kaurwho received the prestigious Turner prize, used his acceptance speech to condemn the genocide, calling for a free Palestine, an arms embargo and extending solidarity with the Palestinians. She stood in solidarity with all those who protested outside the Tate Britain in London, where the event took place, calling for the disinvestment of funds and projects linked to the Israeli government.

“I want to echo the calls of the protesters outside. A protest made up of artists, cultural workers, Tate staff, students, with whom I stand,” said Kaur. “This is not a radical request, this should not risk the career or the security of the artist.”

Despite these acts of solidarity, the vicious censorship, omission, repression and witch hunt of art related to Palestine has not abated in the past 12 months.

In January, the Indiana University art museum canceled an exhibit by Palestinian artist Samia Halaby.

In May, the city of Vail in Colorado canceled the artist residency of Danielle SeeWalker, a Native American artist who had compared the plight of Palestinians to the plight of Native Americans.

In July, the Royal Academy of Art removed two artworks from its Young Artists Summer Show because they were linked to Israel’s war in Gaza. This came after the pro-Israel Board of Deputies of British Jews had sent him a letter regarding the artwork.

In November, the Altonal festival in Hamburg canceled an exhibition of artwork produced by children in Gaza after social media posts attacked it.

These are just a few examples of the massive censorship that Palestinian art and artists and creators who have expressed their solidarity with Palestine have faced in the past year. The silencing and whitewashing in cultural spaces is also done at the institutional level.

In the UK, Arts Council England (ACE) has warned arts institutions that “political statements” could negatively affect funding arrangements. This was revealed in a Freedom of Information request by the Equity union, which also showed that the ACE and the Department of Media, Culture and Sport (DMCS) also clashed over the “reputational risk in relation to the Israel-Gaza conflict”.

Some have highlighted the contradiction of ACE’s actions, since it openly expressed solidarity with Ukraine in 2022 after the Russian invasion. But it is not just the ACE that has shown a blatant double standard in addressing the slaughter in Gaza.

The brilliant Palestinian artist Basma Alsharif perfectly articulated the institutional hypocrisy in her letter to the “Vapid Neoliberal Art World”.

She wrote: “I hope this genocide finds you well. What exactly are you doing these days? Why did you take months to write a statement, if you did everything? Why didn’t you just shut up? Why aren’t you able to boycott Israel like” and have you done Apartheid South Africa? The open letters have you decided to explain your sins?

There are no excuses for complacency regarding the genocide in Gaza. The Palestinian people are facing extermination and our responsibility to them is to ensure that our governments, institutions and industry are not left alone until they cut ties with Israel, stop silencing those who speak out against their crimes , and commit to the liberation of Palestine.

I ask all those in the art world – a pocket of which was so vibrantly represented in the protest outside the Tate when Kaur was awarded – to remember the words of the American author James Baldwin:

“The precise role of the artist, therefore, is to illuminate that darkness, to mark the roads through that vast forest, so as not to have, in all our doing, lose sight of his goal, which is, after everything, to make the world a more human place”.

States and their institutions may use the fight for funding and platforms to repress our expression of solidarity, but in the end they will not win. Those who grant for their personal and professional gains may try to convince themselves that this movement will disappear and the problem will be forgotten, but as long as Palestine is free – and it will be – we will keep the receipts, we will note the absence , we have heard the silence about Israel’s genocide in Gaza. It’s not too late to stay on the right side of history.

A happy new year will only be possible once the Palestinians and all those facing oppression are free.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.