Palestinian artist breathes life and meaning into Jaffa’s shoreline shards

Mohammad Qundus uses the fragments of former lives in his latest exhibition that seeks to reaffirm the Palestinian presence of today and its connection to the past

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Palestinian artist breathes life and meaning into Jaffa’s shoreline shards

Houssam Marouf

last update on 03 Oct 2025

Along the Jaffa shoreline, amid the waves and scattered shells, fragments of vividly coloured decorative tiles wash ashore. These shards came from Palestinian homes, restaurants, and community centres—buildings demolished by Israeli forces and cast into the sea. Each fragment comes with history and memory that resists erasure. This is where Palestinian artist Mohammad Qundus steps in with his Tamm 3 (Burial 3) exhibition at Al-Saraya Theatre.

In it, he innovatively reinterprets Palestinian identity, transforming rubble into artistic forms that evoke humanity, land, and identity, breathing life into history as though it were unfolding now. Tamm 3—his third exhibition—introduces a new language that speaks of migration, return, daily life, and the resilience of memory.

From Al-Saraya Theatre to the Qarar Institute, and from school administration to curating art exhibitions, Mohammad Qundus is no stranger to artistic engagement. For him, the sea is an archive, from which the tiles wash ashore. Tamm 3 is a testament to art’s power to reconstruct what was destroyed and to give voice to those whose stories were left unfinished, transforming fragments of tiles into silent witnesses.

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Visitors to the exhibition pause before each fragment, reflecting, posing questions, and reconstructing stories in their minds. These fragments form a bridge between past, present, and future, between existence and remembrance. They transcend their aesthetic form to redefine identity and reassemble a memory that has long been erased.

The exhibition mirrors the Palestinian legacy of endurance and renewal. As his work shows, the people of this land possess the resilience to survive, the creativity to endure, and the will to rebuild their civilisation, regardless of how prolonged the ruin, or how brutal the assault.

Collective memory

Qundus describes a visceral, almost childlike sensation as he gathers tiles from the shoreline of his city. It evokes memories of his childhood and of his grandparents. “These tiles are not just pieces of stone, they are living memory,” he says, speaking to Al Majalla. “They embody the past, present, and future of our existence on this land. They tell the stories of families and their dream to remain, against all the odds. They bear witness to the Palestinian presence.”

Some tiles were once part of cultural institutions, restaurants, and homes, he explains. “Every colour is a marker, every pattern a sign of a community that lived here and cherished beauty. Each tile is a message from the past, resisting oblivion and echoing the Palestinian presence.”

Through his exhibitions, Qundus creates what resembles a travelling train, one that connects Palestinian cities and restores the thread of a fragmented homeland. The exhibition is “more than just an art show,” he says. “It is a cultural model that links Palestinian cities like Haifa, Jaffa, and Jerusalem.” It extends to Arab cities, such as Baghdad, evoking the rich history of Islamic culture and its intricate architectural motifs.

Islamic and Arab visual art, Qundus notes, flowed from Damascus and Baghdad to the shores of Palestine, Egypt, Morocco, and Andalusia, where a vibrant artistic revival took hold—its remnants still bearing witness to a civilisation that once illuminated the world with its refinement and elegance.

Each tile is a message from the past, resisting oblivion and echoing the Palestinian presence

Palestinian artist Mohammad Qundus

"Civilisation is not merely books, politics or theoretical arts. It is architecture and design; an appreciation of beauty, the ability to arrange space and present it in its finest form. In this way, the tile tells a human story, of migration and return, of the persistence of life despite destruction. Here, beauty is not mere ornamentation. It is a testament to refined taste, and to the Palestinian's commitment to shaping the land and presenting it at its most splendid."

Ruin and reconstruction

At the heart of Qundus's work lies a stark paradox: the dissonance between ornate architectural decoration and the systematic destruction of occupation. For him, this contradiction encapsulates the essence of the Palestinian cause. Despite everything, the Palestinian builds, shaping civilisation and expressing culture and language through art. "The insistence on building is a declaration of life," says the artist. "It is the transformation of destruction into a new aesthetic trace."

Audiences respond positively to his artworks, he says. They follow the exhibitions closely, pay attention to the details, and ask questions. "The new generation needs a different artistic language, one that reflects its lived experience and connects it to its identity through unconventional visual and sensory pathways," he explains.

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Using tile fragments, Qundus constructs faces, bodies, and sculptural forms that create a visual narrative that echoes trauma. "Each face, body, and form reimagines the people of this place within their temporal and geographic context, within the history of conflict and survival," he says. "The human being is the central monument, the beginning and the end, the heart that gives meaning to all landmarks."

Important symbolic structures for Qundus include the clock tower in Jaffa (a symbol of time, reintroducing the past to future generations) and ships (a symbol of migration, return, and movement). "All are ultimately connected to the human being, who weaves their symbols into meaning."

Given the Palestinians' present predicament, he explains that "art is not a luxury, it is a necessity that the Palestinians need to remain, and to prove that they deserved life in the past, and deserve it still, now and in the future". As the occupation seeks to erase any Palestinian presence, Palestinian art remains a force of confrontation.

"Destruction itself must become a narrative tool," he says. "Traumas must be transformed into aesthetic forms that carry the collective message. A visitor to the exhibition does not simply see tiles; they see history, movement, and an undying memory. Each tile resonates with the laughter and pain of people who were killed or displaced from their land. Each pattern points to a life that once existed and continues to live on in the collective memory."

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