Palestinian comics: a cry and a rejection of oblivion

‘Voces propias, grito colectivo’ is the title of the comic exhibition that has been organised by the Spanish Ministry of Culture and the Palestinian Embassy as part of the Culture for Peace programme. 

Housed in Casa Árabe, it can be seen until 18th May, before embarking on a tour of other cities in Spain. The exhibition also celebrates the 20th anniversary of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. 

Based on a project devised by the Valencia Comic Fair and the Al-Fanar Foundation, the exhibition brings together works by Leila Albdelrazaq, Iasmin Omar Ata, Sara Shehadeh, Hassan Manasrah, Hamza Abu Ayyash, Khaled Jarrada, Shahd Alshamali, Dania Omari, Samir Harb and Mohammed Sabaaneh, also as curator of the exhibition together with Pedro Rojo, president of the Al-Fanar Foundation. 

In their graphic work, these ten Palestinian artists (five men and five women) claim their stories, their voices, their future, revealing the daily struggles, the resistance and the Palestinian cultural vitality. In this way, they reject the dominant discourse on Palestine, altering colonial representations and providing a different perspective. 

They argue that the image and concept of Palestine has been chiselled into the world's imagination based on bombs, blood and destruction. In this dominant discourse, which has lasted for more than 75 years, Palestinian voices have long been marginalised, fragmented and discarded. And that is why these artists reject the imposed silence, using their lines to alter the representations fixed by the colonial era. 

One of the great Palestinian intellectuals, Edward Said, argued that ‘to deny someone a voice is to deny them their existence’. From this perspective, the narratives in these comics demand to be read not as passive resources, but as active and dynamic interventions against historical amnesia. 

The curators of the exhibition consider it to be more than an artistic display: ‘It is an affirmation of existence, a challenge to hegemony and a lasting testimony to the Palestinian narrative. In every stroke of ink and every vignette of narrative, these comics are a refusal to forget, a defiant declaration that Palestinian stories will continue to be told, drawn and shared as a collective cry until justice is done’. 

‘I feel lucky’, ‘I'm not leaving’, ‘Attack on Gaza’, ‘Baddawi’, ‘Jerusalem protests’, ‘The tastiest coffee’, ‘It wasn't a dream’ are some of the generic titles with which these artists, born in refugee camps or in other countries that welcome their diaspora, frame their comic strips, each with their own voice but as a collective Palestinian cry.