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Marrakesh When the Moroccan artist Abdelali Benchakroun takes his brush and stands in front of the blank page of a new painting, he feels that the ink with which he draws has hardened, like the tears in his eyes, as he follows the news of the martyrs who rise daily in Palestine.
However, he resists that feeling of despair and frustration, to complete the painting that he began since the beginning of the aggression against the Palestinian people, in which colors, symbols, letters, and the image of Fairouz are mixed, as if he is ringing the bells of return and liberation after a long occupation.
In an interview with Al Jazeera Net, Benchekroun called on every living conscience to express his solidarity with Palestine in all possible forms. This is a call he launched from Marrakesh, along with his fellow calligrapher Muhammad Al-Bandouri. International plastic artists responded to it, and their speech came together in a virtual art exhibition, through which they launched their cry. To break through the wall of silence and reach both worlds, as he put it.
Cohesion with Gaza
One does not need to emphasize that the war on Gaza is an unspeakable tragedy of genocide, as stated in the preamble of the exhibition, which promotes the idea of supporting the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation and the restoration of all their historical rights.
These artists from the countries of Morocco, France, Russia, India, Iraq, Lebanon, Azerbaijan and Iran participate – with their paintings – to document their solidarity with the Palestinian people in their plight.
The president of the Contemporary Arts Dialogue Association (Benchekroun) emphasizes that the contributing artists provide an effective model that contributes to the cohesion of ideas and their expression with spirit and brush, to form an important global communication link, given that the artist has a prominent influence in defending just causes.
He points out that the exhibition received great interaction on social networking sites, and many requests to join the initiative from Morocco and abroad, and it serves as a reflection of the tragedy that the souls of the artists felt, the magnitude and seriousness of the situation.
A dream and a reality
In a painting entitled “Between Dream and Reality,” painted before October 7, 2023, it has a balloon in the middle and the colors of the Palestinian flag are mixed in it, as if anticipating a resistance operation in Palestine.
The Lebanese artist Hana Abdel Khaleq told Al Jazeera Net that she used that flying object in that painting as if it were a dream that lifted her from the tragic situation and carried her hopes with it.
After starting the process “Al-Aqsa Flood” -By landing affiliated fighters Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades The military wing of the Hamas movement, through the balloons behind the wall besieging Gaza, Hana feels the contradiction between dream and reality, the dream of saving what remains of camels in Lebanon, and the reality of saving the land of Palestine from the occupier, which is a contradiction between ups and downs, between hot and cold air, between the attractiveness of Land and freedom from restrictions.
She adds that the earth is boiling with the tragedy of the Palestinian people, women and men, children and the elderly, with painful scenes that are heartbreaking, and that the artist naturally expresses his way of conveying his message to the world and its solidarity and that his heart is always present and with everyone, noting that Lebanon itself is not far from this tragedy in particular. The South and its steadfast people.
Palestine is not dead
“Palestine is not dead,” this is how French artist Bertrand Boulogne begins his talk to Al Jazeera Net, pointing out that the exhibition serves as a source of energy for everyone, and it shows objective solidarity.
“Despite our differences, it is important that we come together around the basic values of freedom and mutual respect for each other’s beliefs, races and religions,” he adds.
Polon, the university professor, confirms that the civilian population is the one who pays an unacceptable price at all levels and is treated like livestock, and that the various violations resulting from the war are not only deaths, but rather have a direct relationship with past history and the multiple responsibilities it reveals.
The same speaker says that there is a lot of work to be done, and despite the context of war, the exhibition is a real opportunity to move things forward, concluding by saying, “Palestine remains in our hearts.”
Turn up the volume
In turn, Russian artist Laila Olga feels that Moroccan blood runs through her veins and that this country, which provided her with love, reciprocates the same feeling, and she has no choice but to be on the side of a just cause.
She told Al Jazeera Net that solidarity with the Palestinian cause “revives in us what remains of humanity in a world subject to the law of the jungle, in which the strong eat up the weak, and in which schools and hospitals are bombed relentlessly, in blatant violation of every humanitarian principle in war and peace.”
Olga, who uses vivid symbols in her paintings to express daily life in Morocco, raises her voice loudly to reject all displacement and genocide of the Palestinian people, and the aggression practiced against children, women and all civilians, highlighting that everyone, heart and soul, is in solidarity with occupied Palestine.
siege
In the exhibition, a plastic painting and another calligraphy painting stand out, drawn with a soul or sculpted with love and passion, in which the meditating visitor feels that the faces are screaming in the face of the world, rising above the pain as if they are breaking the despair that creeps into the souls, and besieging the occupier, turning him unconscious and without dignity.
A person stands amazed at the tragedy of what happens in Gaza on a daily basis, and feelings are stirred in him that push him, as these artists did, to solidarity through the talent and ability to create that he possesses, with which he supports the resistors, and may parallel the creativity of resistance methods on the ground.
The Moroccan calligrapher, Al-Arabi Track, told Al Jazeera Net that he feels overwhelming anger at the genocide carried out by the occupation army against the Palestinian people, who have the right to life, freedom, and the defense of their land and sanctities.
While plastic artist Najia Al-Murabit points out in an interview with Al Jazeera Net that the artist, with his human sense, expresses through his brush his feelings of condemnation of violence, highlighting that her painting “Resilience” is a symbol of resistance and the pursuit of liberation and peace in Palestine and the world.
