The Swedish photojournalist, Mia Grondahl, has written a most original and enjoyable book on the art of graffiti in Gaza. She spent seven years documenting the colorful writings on the walls of Gaza. Dividing her time between Cairo and southern Sweden, her photographs have also appeared “In Hope and Despair: Life in the Palestinian Refugee Camps.” (AUC Press, 2003).
From the very beginning, writing graffiti in Gaza was an act of resistance against Israeli occupation. In December 1987 when the first intifada broke out, Israel controlled all news and information channels; there was no Palestinian TV or radio, and not even one local daily newspaper. So the walls became an obvious means of communication for the intifada activists, a place from which news could reach everyone.
The author tells us that it took her many years before she began documenting this unique form of graffiti: “It felt wrong, almost irresponsible, to aim my camera at the graffiti, however artistic it was, when people were losing their lives and experiencing the daily crushing of their hopes for peace and justice. There were more important things to report. Finally, though, I could no longer resist the call from the walls.”
The establishment of the peace process in a self-governing territory brought hopes of setting up a television and radio station as well as establishing a printing press. There seemed to be no more use for graffiti. With a five million dollar donation from the Japanese government, the Palestinian Authority cleaned thousands of kilometers of graffiti but the expensive clean-up turned out to be a complete waste of money:
“Suddenly all these naked white surfaces were all over Gaza, as if the walls had been prepared especially for us. All we had to do was to start spraying!” explains a graffiti artist.
This new wave of graffiti was done by artists trained in design, painting and calligraphy and the result was more artistic. In Gaza, calligraphy is taken very seriously: A graffiti that lacks form and content is not accepted. Some of Gaza’s best graffiti artists studied calligraphy when they were young — Bassem Odeh, age 33, already had 20 years of experience, having been a graffiti artist in the first intifada. According to Odeh, the person who commissions a graffiti, supplies the slogan and the spray cans but he must also make sure that the wall has been cleaned, and given an undercoat of white paint: “When I get to the wall, I can start working right away. I measure the surface, and decide what calligraphy and colors suit the message. I give the most important words the most space and the strongest colors. Once I’ve decided, things go quickly. I can do seven meters of calligraphy in half an hour.”
Since Israel’s war against Gaza, there has been a lack of artists’ materials and whatever is available has been smuggled through tunnels and resold at prohibitive prices. The once lively graffiti moving along the walls in bright green, red, black, and yellow is fading away. Grayness is back. Despite a depressing atmosphere, Gaza’s artists are keeping all their hopes alive. Special projects funded by various nongovernmental organizations give artists the possibility of expressing their feelings and thoughts on a wall. Two months after Israel’s war against Gaza, a group of 13 young artists, studying at the College of Fine Arts at Al-Aqsa University, went to the wall opposite the bomb-shattered parliament. One of them found a portion of the wall undamaged where she painted a huge key, symbolizing the right of return to Palestine.