long time, no see
what i've been doing since november, plans for the year, and media recommendations
NOTE: if you saw this newsletter in your inbox already yesterday, you can blame my forgetting that proofreading is important. this version is 95% the same, with some sentence tweaks here and there because i’m a perfectionist who’s not confident about writing. that’s all!
hey substack friends, it’s been a while
there are many reasons i fell off writing newsletter posts since November including but not limited to; having a stressful housing situation forcing me to move mid-December, a general winter lull in inspiration requiring me to be more attentive in nurturing my mental health, and my increase in focus on activism for ending the genocide in Palestine that has been worsening since October.
i have barely illustrated for myself in these past months, and shared online what i have made even less so. my desire to create anything completely evaporated when i began actually focusing my energy on paying attention to this genocide. in my mind it was too selfish for me to even consider sharing anything that didn’t center Palestine while the continuous & unimaginable violence is still happening. there is no use in self-flagellating over how late i feel like i am to this movement, and how little i sought out information on world issues like this one in the past - my focus is better used continuing from where i am now and doing as much as i can every day.
one of the only projects i’ve worked on recently is this illustration, as well as an accompanying written piece about the Palestine sunbird & how the israeli occupying force is wreaking havoc on local ecosystems, for a small newsletter run by my hometown’s activism group.
a blurb from the piece i wrote - when the full newsletter is out i will be sure to share it on my instagram page. i have not written anything remotely academic in several years, and this was challenging but good practice.
The Palestine sunbird is not at risk of extinction, but they are part of an ecosystem that is suffering because of the settler-colonial state of Israel. Palestine is located in one of the most highly-trafficked bird migration corridors, with up to 550 different species making their journey through Palestinian skies twice a year. Most birds are unimpeded by border checkpoints or 7-meter high concrete walls, but the effects of occupation do not make an exception for wildlife.
this small project was a very needed reminder that my art skills are atrophying when i could be using them in conjunction with my desire to learn and share information about Palestinian liberation, history, and ecology. i think it is also a good reminder to everyone that no matter what your skills and expertise are in, there is a place for you in Palestinian liberation. i have seen fiber artists knitting Palestine flags, chefs sharing recipes for Palestinian dishes, dancers learning the Palestinian dabke, twitch streamers doing huge fundraisers for the PCRF, the list goes on. we all have passion for something, and there is always a way to use your passion either to drive you to learn or as a medium to spread awareness.
in an effort to combine my artistic knowledge with my drive to spread the message of Palestinian liberation, i designed these stickers back in December. their purpose was to be handed out to friends, and put up in as many spots as i could find to put a sticker in a public place (many of them made it all the way to DC last month!). i am only in the baby stages of learning Arabic so my writing is not perfect, but i’m proud anyways.
i want to continue a project focused on illustrating and doing research on flora & fauna native to Palestine, extant and extinct. this is the best way to keep me focusing my energy where it matters. you can expect to see more from me on substack as well as instagram & tumblr in the near future.
while i haven’t been drawing, i have been watching movies & listening to music as always. most recently, I got to see a theatre screening of Emad Burnat’s 5 Broken Cameras; a first-hand account in the village بلعين/Bil’in in the West Bank from 2005 to 2010/2011 that follows the local peaceful protest movement, the building, tearing down, and building again of physical barriers between Bil’in and Israeli settlements, as well as the growth of Burnats son Gibreel from birth. it is free to watch on Youtube if you have 90 minutes to spare (i bet you do!)
I also recommend the films Farha (a historical drama that follows a 14-year-old girls survival during the 1948 Nakba), and Tale of Three Jewels (a young boys imaginative adventure story set in Gaza after the first Intifada - it is the first movie to be shot entirely in the Gaza Strip). Farha is on Netflix and Tale of Three Jewels is free on Youtube as well.
my new favorite musician right now has been Bashar Murad. all of these music videos are fantastic - please watch them. he brings the perfect amount of humor and levity to heavy topics in his music, and i have watched all of these many times over to revel in the beautiful art direction.
Bashar was featured on a song by Hatari, my favorite Icelandic punk-industrial-BDSM-techno band, called Klefi/Samed (صامد) in 2020, and i FINALLY sought out his solo work after admiring his vocal range on this track for ages! in December, he did an excellent interview with the magazine Them, and as a final note for this months newsletter, i would like to include this fantastic quote from him on the topic of the pinkwashing of Israel as a justification for the dehumanizing of Palestinians (pinkwashing in this context refers to businesses/governments using queer liberation movements to legitimize oppression against other groups)
There are queer people everywhere, and there is homophobia everywhere. I don’t get why we’re trying to pretend that homophobia only exists in Palestine. Queer people are being killed in Gaza as we speak. The bombs do not have a special sensor that detects whether these people are gay or not. There is no pink ID that we show to the soldiers to show them that we are gay. There’s no pink door in the apartheid wall that allows for queer Palestinians to escape.
As Palestinians, we are all suffering from the same occupation. We believe that our fight for freedom is from all kinds of oppression, whether it is colonialism, Zionism, patriarchy, and so on. We won’t accept selective freedom. We are hungry for absolute freedom.
thanks for reading this far, and i look forward to writing and creating more soon.