I Witness Silwan 2021-2023

Photo by vnx.o

The way we are resisting is by telling our stories.

–Jawad Siyam, Madaa Creative Center

II

I Witness Silwan Report 2021-2023

‫س ْل َوان‬ َ ‫َأنَا‬ ِ ‫شا ِه ٌد َعلَى‬

I Witness Silwan is a project of Madaa Creative Center Mission To build a safe, creative, and human rights-oriented space for the community. We do this by engaging with children, youth, women, and men through activities and projects that empower them.

Strategic Objectives (summary) ––To contribute to the steadfastness of the Jerusalemite community; ––To contribute to the empowerment of Jerusalemite women; ––To contribute to creating a secure environment for children; –– To develop MCC's capacity and resources and strengthen its selfSustainability Art Forces Mission is to create community public-art and media in resistance to militarism, environmental injustice and colonialism.

Goals include: —Making visible forgotten histories —Interrogate systems of knowledge and power —Produce knowledge —Youth development

Partial Funding

Sam Mazza Foundation Handleman Family Fund Middle East Children’s Alliance

‫ بعيدا عن المستوطنين‬، ‫نريد ابعاد اطفالنا عن العنف‬ ‫ نريد أن نعيد لهم القليل من طفولتهم‬.‫والجيش‬. ‫ فرع بطن‬، ‫ مدير مركز مدى اإلبداعي‬، ‫زهير رجبي‬ ‫ القدس الشرقية‬، ‫ سلوان‬، ‫الهوى‬ We want to keep our children away from the violence, away from the settlers and the army. We want to give them back a little bit of their childhood.

Zuheir Rajabi, Director Madaa Creative Center, Batn al Hawa Branch, Silwan, East Jerusalem

I WITNESS SILWAN

Public Art, Tourism, and International Solidarity in Occupied East Jerusalem Madaa-Silwan Creative Center & US-based Art Forces

َ ‫أَنَا‬ ‫ه‬ ِ ‫شا‬

‫الفن العام والسياحة والتضامن الدولي في القدس الشرقية المحتلة‬ ‫وان مركز م‬ ِ ‫ودى سلوان اإلبداعيدٌ عَلَى‬ َ ْ ‫سل‬ ‫منظمة آرت فورسيس في الواليات المتحدة‬ I Witness Silwan is an international public art project in support of Silwan’s fight against dispossession. Murals depicting the eyes of local and international leaders, activists, workers, and more, are scattered across the hills of Silwan, East Jerusalem and can be seen from miles away.

َ ‫َأنا‬ ‫ تنتشر‬.‫ِف لِدعم نضال سلوان الطويل في وجه نزع الملكية‬ ُ ‫شا ِه ٌد َعلى سِ لوان هو مشروع ف ّن ٌي عام دولي َيهد‬ ‫ص ِو ُر عيون قاد ٍة محليين وعالميين ونشطاء وعمال وغيرهم عبر تالل سلوان في القدس‬ َّ ‫الجداريات التي ُت‬ ‫الشرقية ويمكن رؤيتها من على بعد أميال‬ Accomplishments 2022 and 2023 (selected) I. Sent two master muralists from the USA to work in Silwan 2022 and 2023.

II. Installed 20 new murals in three new Silwan neighborhoods for a total of 5 neighborhoods (out of 12).

• The new murals total approximately 4,000 square feet, including on the remains of destroyed homes and on Silwan’s hillside.

• Imagery includes several twelve-thirty foot high anemone flowers, and eyes that memorialize writer Ghassan Kanafani by artist C.Ghazaleh, journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, Malcolm X by artist Emery Douglas, and martyr Milad Ayyash by Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour.

III. Conducted six workshops and trainings for twenty local youth to develop artwork and murals, who helped create seven murals.

IV. Video Production V. Stipended intensive for the Silwan team of young artists and organizers on community muralism skills including painting and design, community relations, project organizing, and media relations.

VI. Strengthened relationship with organizers in US and Palestine.

VII. Media response • Approximately 50 articles in English and Arabic published including • Los Angeles Times https://bit.ly/3jbjZOv • The Arab Weekly https://bit.ly/3YB84K0 • Haaretz https://bit.ly/3j7SHIN VIII. Designed and led a series of guided walking tours of Silwan, which will inform self- guided tours that are in production.

IX. Participated in Conferences

Batn al-Hawa, Silwan, East Jerusalem Eyes Murals–Can be seen across the city.

Eyes of Community Member

Eyes of Ghassan Kanafani, writer, assassinated 1973.

Image: C.Ghazaleh

Eyes of Um Nasser, resident fighting dispossession

Hillside Batn al-Hawa The staring eyes say to people that we see them and they should see us too…we want to say that we are here — we love our land and our home.

–Jawad Siyam

Dispossession by religious settler “non-profits” such as Ateret Cohanim, threaten 750 to 800 people living in 15 buildings in Batn al-Hawa.These settler “non-profits” aim to dispossess all of Silwan’s Palestinian residents.

Eyes of Nizar Shweiki, Freedom Fighter Eyes of Mohummad Fatafta, Freedom Fighter

Eyes of Community Member Freedom Fighter Palestine Flower

Eyes of Hamad Moussa, Farmer

Image by John Halaka, Palestinian American artist.

Eyes of Che Guevara

Che Guevara visited Gaza on behalf of the Cuban government in 1959, and, 64 years later, Cuba continues to voice support for Palestinians.

Eyes of George Perry Floyd, Killed by police in USA

Hillside Batn al-Hawa

Eyes of Bai Bibiyon, Lumad leader & organizer woman-chieftain in the Philippines.

Image: Cece Carpio

Eyes of Iyad el Halak, Killed by occupation Forces in 2019.

Eyes of John Berger critic and writer.

Alex Nieto American citizen killed

by San Francisco police in 2014.

Image: Josué Rojas.

Eyes of Rachel Corrie,

American activist killed by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza, 2003.

Image: Dennis Sullivan Photo: Kobi Wolfe

Eyes of Milad Ayyash by Sliman Mansour

Eyes of Malcom X by Emery Douglas

Batn al Hawa, Silwan, East Jerusalem Neighborhood Murals–Local visibility Victory – mural on Rajabi home

Chris Gazala with I Witness Team Photos: Afif Amireh

Zuheir Rajabi’s House

Local youth, Amir and Sara.

The Rajabi family has been fighting dispossession and its vissiccitudes for a decade.

Free Bird

Palestine Flower Eyes

Um Nasser’s House Um Nasser and her family have been fighting displacement for 10 years.

I Witness Silwan Team with Um Nasser’s family Photo: Afif Amireh, Jenan Maswadeh

Your Imagination is Limitless, and Your Mind is the Most Powerful Tool Mural on kindergarten

Designed and painted by C. Ghazaleh Photo Afif Amireh

Batn al Hawa, Silwan, East Jerusalem–Seen across the city Freedom Youth Mural

‫الحريه‬

Wadi Hilweh, Silwan, East Jerusalem –on street leading to Madda Creative Center Gifts From the Sun

In 1994, total control over Silwan was given to "non-profits" and Israel Nature and Parks Authority. They use ‘heritage tourism to create a different political reality in Silwan’ and renamed Silwan "City of David", a bible themed tourist site with over one million visitors a year.

Designed & painted by Chris Gazala with I Witness Team & Community

Hajat Paint Day (Women’s Paint Day)

The goal of the ”non-profits”, with full backing of the state of Israel, is to dispossess all Palestinians in Silwan and install Jewish settlers.

Hundreds of Palestinians have already been dispossessed.

Designed and painted with I Witness Team and women of Wadi Hilweh

Ain al Loza, Silwan, East Jerusalem Seeds Of Love May 2022, the Rajabi home was demolished. 35 people were dispossessed, and a clinic.

“This earth, if it were in my hands, if I were able to flip this world, if I possessed the power to saturate this world, with seeds of love, so all the world is filled with trees of love, so love becomes the world, so loved becomes the way” –Fadwa Tuqan

"I choose journalism to be close to people, it may not be easy to change the reality but at least I was able to make that voice heard by the world" –Shireen Abu Akleh

"My homeland is not a suitcase, and I am no traveler” Diary of a Palestinian Wound, Mahmoud Darwish Designed and painted by I Witness Silwan Team

I Witness Silwan Core Team Among the many families facing eviction notices in East Jerusalem, Um Nasser all Rajabi, who lives in Silwan's Batin Al Hawa neighborhood, is one of the closest to me. I remember her bringing me a cup of tea and sitting next to me with tears in her eyes. I could see both sadness and strength as she talked about the recent clash near her house, her fear of tear gas being thrown at the children. She discussed how the murals made her feel reassured and safe. These invaluable and neverending words of support from Um Nasser and all those around us show the steadfast desire of my people to live a peaceful, normal life.

–Manar Shereateh

For me, "I Witness Silwan" is a project of support, steadfastness, challenge, resistance, and delivering a message to the occupier.

Sometimes we are there to draw and witness the attacks of the occupation army on the people and even on us while we are drawing.

–Jenan Maswadeh

I Witness Silwan is an act of visual decolonization, looking the “colonial gaze” in the eye. Generating a global gaze in Silwan, the project makes visible what was hidden or ignored. I Witness Silwan claims the right to look (Derrida) bearing witness to colonial violence and dispossession, and steadfast resistance, and encouraging solidarity.

–Susan Greene, Director Art Forces, I Witness Silwan

I think this project will make people understand more of what is happening –whether people come to Silwan and see everything up close or see everything from a distance. We want everyone to know that we love life and want to live in peace – we want a flourishing life in our homes and neighborhood –and that our only wish is not to be deported from our homes.

–Zuhier Rajabi, head of Residents Council and Madaa Creative Center, Batn al-Hawa branch.

As a Palestinian American I learned so much more about my people’s struggle for self determination and justice in I Witness Silwan’s mural camp. The people of Silwan were part of the project every step of the way. The occupation is their daily struggle and I witnessed what art can do. I witnessed the hope that comes along with creating a narrative seldom represented and lifted up in a world which suppresses the voices of the oppressed.

–Chris Ghazala, 2022 Master Muralist