GAZA: MESSAGES & IMAGES
Exhibition and Events at P21 Gallery 21-23 Chalton Street London NW1 – Tuesday 9th January – Thursday 25th January 2024
In collaboration with Az Theatre and associated artists, P21 Gallery is presenting a short season of work centred around an installation of the MESSAGES FROM GAZA NOW #3 FILM. This will be an open space of inspiration, reflection and cultural activism.
Since the escalation of the genocide in early October 2023, Hossam Madhoun, theatre-maker, co-director of Theatre for Everybody in Gaza, has sent accounts of his daily life and struggles. The film shows a reading by artists and others at P21 in early December.
“The camera is unerringly still as reader after reader come into frame conveying their own special voicing of Hossam’s words. The diversity of the readers is extraordinary; the shared sensibility is characteristically consistent.”
The MESSAGES tell the story of forced evacuation and displacement, the ‘complete siege’, the bombing, the efforts to help neighbours and other displaced people, the shortages, the queues and the confrontation with human suffering and death.
The readings of Hossam’s words together with other testimonies have offered the space and opportunity to reflect on the horrifying events in Palestine and to refine solidarity with Palestinians and sharpen activism.
GAZA: MESSAGES & IMAGES will present art, graphic artefacts and images of the Palestinians’ struggle for freedom and justice also a series of events and gatherings with readings, poetry, music and film.
“Cry, baby, cry my son, no shame, cry as much as you want, cry as much as you were afraid, cry until your cries reach the sky or reach a moving heart somewhere in this mad world!”
More information:
The MESSAGES FROM GAZA NOW #3 FILM (suitable for an installation, running time 110 minutes) Cinematography: Jonathan Bloom / Producer: Maysoon Pachachi /Editor: Nicolas Seaton. There are fourteen readers.
Hossam Madhoun is the co-founder of Gaza’s Theatre for Everybody, which has a goal of producing dramatic productions appealing to a broad population. Due to the dire conditions in Gaza, productions are rare these days. Instead, he and his partner Jamal Al Rozzi have also dedicated their energies to using their drama and other types of therapy skills for children and young people. Hossam is a Child Protection Programme Manager for a large NGO. Jamal is the leader of a major support network for disabled people.
Theatre for Everybody has been in creative partnership with Az Theatre in London since 2009. Az Theatre was in the process of developing a new stage of its collaboration called August 9th Project — the date in 2018 when the Israeli armed forces destroyed the Al Mishal Cultural Centre in Gaza.
The texts of Messages from Gaza Now by Hossam Madhoun and others, were prepared by Ruth Lass and Jonathan Chadwick. The MESSAGES are available in English, French, Spanish, German, Arabic and Italian on www.aztheatre.org.uk
There have been three MESSAGES FROM GAZA NOW readings at P21 Gallery and Hossam’s writing has been read in many locations internationally. They have appeared in Le Soir, inMediapart, in Markaz. Two other events presented by a collective of artists of which Az Theatre is a part have produced sell-out reading and public conversation events at Tara Theatre and Arcola Theatre in London. Both of these events featured readings of Hossam’s MESSAGES.
In all this work Az Theatre has been concerned to connect the experiences of people in Gaza with experiences of Palestinians elsewhere, especially including the Freedom Theatre in Jenin. In addition the material read at the events have expressed the impact of silencing, victimisation and cancelling of people showing support and solidarity with Palestinians.
photo of broken reading glasses by Hossam Madhoun