One thing apart from blood

How do I write above the clouds my kin’s will? And my kin / depart time behind …, and my kin / at any time when they construct a fortress they raze it to erect above it / a tent of longing

‘How do I write above the clouds?’, requested Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinian poet. How do I write above the clouds my kin’s will? Strangers cross by carrying seven hundred years of horses on an Earth that was not his; solely the keys to the sky had been. Darwish, who so poignantly wrote in regards to the anguish of dispossession and exile, exited the wrinkles of his time following his personal will: to be expelled slowly, to be killed shortly, beneath his olive tree, with Lorca.

For the previous few months, Yasmin Huleileh, Ahmad Alaqra, Andrés Burbano and I’ve been organizing I Will Write Our Will Above the Clouds, a sequence of occasions aimed toward elevating funds for Gaza. All of it started with Darwish, whose cries we nonetheless hear, maybe even louder immediately, even after his passing. Every morning, I get up to the information and consider my mates in Gaza: ‘Are they alright?’

There’s barely any electrical energy there, and connection to the Web is scarce. Amer Nasser images are a way of survival. He climbs mountains of rubble, hoping to seek out connection, to ship a sign. ‘This is how we survive,’ he says, ‘with the word “barely” written everywhere: this is barely a house, this is barely a cup of tea, this is barely living’. Like NASA spacecraft Voyager 1 in 1977, traversing the vastness of area, he tries to ship his indicators into the void, hoping somebody, someplace, will obtain them – and bear in mind.

In the event that they depart, they depart a land to be taken; but when they keep? Artist Amal Al Nakhala imagines the day when corpses will begin falling from the skies:

I’ve been all in ‘sway’, watching or reasonably reliving every bloodbath … and now it’s merely change into regular routine you see day by day, passing by it as in case you are passing by trash or one thing. … It’s change into so regular for my individuals to decompose, be burned, amputated, for his or her flesh to fall, disintegrating from the bones, for his or her corpses to be eaten by canine, for infants to be killed of their moms’ wombs. I wouldn’t even be shocked if as soon as the sky would merely rain individuals from all of those limitless bombs.

Raining Individuals, Amal Al Nakhala, 2024, ballpoint on paper, 42 x 59.4 cm. Picture courtesy of the artist

Is that this how one writes their will above the clouds?

Artist Bayan Abu Nahla regrets evacuating Gaza. She managed to go away by means of a well being switch to Egypt, solely to seek out there have been no medical doctors nor hospitals, solely a detention centre and months of utter isolation: ‘take me back to Gaza, where at least hugs are like nowhere else.’

Artist Shereen Abdelkareem, however, dreamed of taking Gaza along with her. She needed to hold her dwelling, her grandfather’s home, the mosque that her grandfather loves, her college, her office, the café the place she met her mates, her neighbourhood bakery, her neighbours’ houses, the hospital the place she was born. She needed to take her goals along with her, her recollections, her childhood, her prayers, her days, her current, her previous, her future. However her ‘bag wasn’t large enough’.

Over time, Abdelkareem’s resolve shifted; she doesn’t wish to take Gaza along with her anymore: ‘As for me, leave me here’ … ‘We will never forget, even if we lose our memories’. And so begins the tenth exodus in the direction of loss of life.

Learn Issa, 2024, espresso on paper. Picture courtesy of the artist

Artist Sohail Salem’s serene and peaceable oils on canvas are actually erratic strokes, scribbles of anguish etched onto notebooks. Artist Raed Issa, who longs for a easy cup of espresso, makes use of dregs as an alternative for his artwork – now his solely accessible drawing medium. Since 7 October artist Maisara Baroud has made certain to remain in contact together with his mates as a lot as doable, reassuring them day by day by means of a brand new sketch through one other put up on Instagram. These drawings are his manner of claiming ‘I am still alive’.

Baroud strives to doc the battle, capturing the main points of each account – the destruction, persistence, starvation, weak point, displacement, ache, brokenness, loss of life and resilience, thus transposing tales of a battle that unleashes incommensurable hurt. Planes and missiles have destroyed all his goals and possessions, however they couldn’t take away his ardour and love for drawing.

Maisara Baroud, 2024. Picture courtesy of the artist

Our sequence, I Will Write Our Will Above the Clouds, started as an effort to showcase previous works that had been destroyed – bombed, buried below rubble. Now, it contains works being created within the current: in tents, in ache. Every time one of many artists doesn’t reply for greater than three days, we stay in anguish. Then, their response arrives, and we supply on.

The items we showcase are digital copies – one other that means of ‘the clouds’. Nothing can enter or depart Gaza. 1000’s of assist vans wait on the border, barred from crossing whereas Gazans starve. We’ll write our will above the clouds, for the digital cloud is our solely communication lifeline. Our solely option to obtain, as Nasser says, ‘signals of life’.

How would Darwish’s poetry convey all of this if written immediately? Will we write our will above the clouds? Inside a tent? Beneath the moon? Underneath the shade of an olive tree? Will we write our will with one thing apart from blood? ‘The olive grove was always green; / It was, my beloved. / But tonight / The blood of fifty victims / Has turned it into a red pool. / Please don’t blame me / If I can’t come; / They’ve murdered me too’.

Amer Nasser, 2024, digital {photograph}. Picture courtesy of the artist

The names within the textual content are the true names of Gazan artists whose work we exhibit, apart from Mahmoud Darwish, who’s now not with us. The names within the textual content are the true names of our mates. And all of that is for them.