“Seeing” Gaza: Between one-dimensional media coverage and colourful artistic representation

The normalisation of violent occupation

The curse of the Middle East is that it is a region of the world that has come to be perpetually connected with conflict in the eyes of the international media. As a result, to many outside the region, merely saying the words "Middle East" invokes negative notions like war, terrorism, and extremism.

Gaza is part of this enduring image. It shares the burden of the same stereotype associated with other conflict settings in the Middle East — from Beirut to Baghdad. It does not help that the media usually only cover places when disasters happen. It is said that news often means bad news. But nowadays, news often means spectacularly bad news.

There are many risks as a result of this reductionism in representation. One danger is that to the casual observer, places like Gaza are imagined as spaces of endless suffering that are normalised.

Fishermen cannot go out to sea because Israeli coastguards block them and, therefore, struggle to make a living. This rarely makes it to the news because it happens all the time.

People cannot travel because of the Israeli occupation. This is also regarded as unnewsworthy. Episodes of fighting between Israel and armed groups in Gaza came to be routinised over the years.

When they did make it to the news as an item, they quickly vanished from the headlines because they were not considered very newsworthy. Even spectacular violence becomes mundane for the news media, who always seek the next new thing.

One-dimensional view

Another risk is that this reductionism creates a mental image of Gaza that has little to do with reality. Instead of imagining a space with a fine sandy beach, cafes, and residential areas where communities mingle and children play, a place where the sun shines more often than not, Gaza comes to be imagined as a dystopian urban jungle — claustrophobic, dull, muted, dark.

This one-dimensional representation of Gaza overlooks its vibrancy and its residents' love for life. It is as if Gaza is permanently imagined in black and white when it's bursting with colour.

But challenging this dominant image of Gaza in the news is a vast array of community videos, memes, social media content, and artistic interventions that present more nuanced representations.

In September, I met a Palestinian architect and artist residing in Occupied Jerusalem called Ghadeer Najjar, who told me about an exhibition she had staged in 2018 across 12 major Palestinian cities.

One of the ideas behind the exhibition was to reconnect Palestinians with their urban heritage as a way to counter the restrictions on their movement between Palestinian cities due to the Israeli occupation.

Part of the work created for the exhibition was maps of Palestinian cities showing their main streets. Najjar said that the most challenging map to create was that of Gaza because of the absence of reliable data about Gaza's topography.

"I am delighted to share my work with Al Majalla. The featured images and video showcase Palestinian cities' cultural, architectural, and artistic aspects, including Gaza," Najjar said.

"I would also like to acknowledge the studio research and artwork of @hanashamscent, which is dedicated to the urban heritage of Levant cities and their unique cultural connections. Hana Sham Scent aims to create awareness of the distinctiveness of Levant urban heritage through visual art and interpretation."

"The projects under Hana Sham Scent have successfully fostered pride and a sense of connection to our places, heritage, and culture."

Najjar's comments got me thinking about the impact of surveillance and destruction on something people have taken for granted in the contemporary world: the ability to "see" a place on the map and how art can help make the invisible visible.

Najjar's map of Gaza came to my mind as I followed the news of Israel's flattening of northern Gaza. That map is now not just a work of art; it is one of the few remaining archives of how Gaza was before the war.

Gaza itself has borne many renowned artists, like Taysir Batniji, whose work has graced major exhibitions and art spaces around the world. Batnji's creations are often abstract, but they engage vividly with the issues of visibility and remembering.

One of Batniji's most impactful pieces is a sculpture made of soap titled No Condition is Permanent (2014-2022), which was shown last year as part of an exhibition of his work at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha. The sculpture's title is inscribed on the bars of soap, which the audience can take home with them and gradually vanishes if the soap is used.

Batniji's sculpture is a powerful creative intervention that provokes thinking about Palestine in the context of the human condition where hope and despair intertwine.

The artist himself said in a statement about his art on the exhibition's page: "In 1997, I wanted to work on ways to master my own language as an artist, and with that, I had to specify my position within the historical narrative and reality. This created an intersection and interaction between my personal story and my context as a Palestinian, artist, and human."

The news may be about showing the world what is happening in a place and does play an important role in documenting atrocities and raising awareness. But it also obscures almost as much as it shows.

And once it moves to the next big story, the places it covers risk being forgotten by the average media consumer. Meanwhile, art remains as one of the means to really "see" Gaza.