painted wall

Solidarity

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‘Solidarity today, solidarity everyday [every day]”. International politics makes a rare appearance in the city centre: support for the Palesitinians in Gaza – now under attack from Israeli forces for 116 days (Al Jazeera) takes the place of pieces by Conor McClure and All The Doodz.

See also: Ukraine Has Suffered Enough.

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Another Martyr In The Earth

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This entry chronicles (in reverse order/from latest to earliest) the painting of one of Saïd Hassan’s (ig) contributions to the Painting For Palestine (Fb) project that is currently transforming the International Wall on Divis Street in west Belfast. The piece appears to be inspired by the mass grave in Khan Younis (in the Gaza Strip) in which more than 100 corpses were buried in November (Al Jazeera video | Reuters gallery).

Hassan’s instagram post of his original artwork cites a few lines from Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani (WP): “Let’s plant them as our martyrs in the womb of this soil thickened with bleeding … there is always room in the ground for another martyr.”

January 26th:

January 24th:

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Out The Back Of Boots

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“Pro tanto quid retribuamus?” – What shall we give in return for so much? – is the motto of Belfast. These instances are in Castle Street and in Fountain Place, which is “out the back of Boots” – generations of Belfasters (since 1975 – Belfast Live) have used Boots to move between Donegall Place and the Fountain area (or fountains (plural) – see Fountain Street Spirits).

(See previously: Pro Tanto on a mural of HMS Belfast | Pro Tanto on Clifton St Orange Hall.)

Warp, weave, scutch and hackle are actions in the processing of flax fibre (Ulster Linen).

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Soso And Omar Ashour

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Siblings Soso and Omar Ashour were brought to a Gaza hospital in the first week of the Israeli attack. Artist Raed Yousef Qatanani (ig) took them as subjects (ig photo | ig video of the pair) for a painting which has in turn been reproduced on the International Wall in west Belfast as part of the Painting For Palestine project (Fb).

January 26th:

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Father, Protect Me

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Here is a completed mural from the Painting For Palestine project (Fb) on the International Wall, Divis Street, Belfast, showing a man holding an injured child against a backdrop of razed buildings in Gaza. It is now 125 days since Israel began its war on Gaza in response to the Hamas attacks on October 7th and images of parents carrying their dead and injured children, and of the devastation of Gaza’s buildings, are now all too common – here is an Al Jazeera gallery from December.

Like the ‘Khan Younis mass grave’ (seen in Another Martyr In The Earth), this image is also by digital artist Saïd Hassan (ig). The next mural (to the right) can be seen in A Window To A Free Country.

January 26th:

January 24th:

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Painting For Palestine

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In January 2024, in response to the prolonged Israeli attack on Gaza, many murals on the “International Wall” on Divis Street were painted out and work began on reproductions of artworks by artists from Palestine and elsewhere in the region. The project was called Painting For Palestine and a Facebook page and GoFundMe page were launched.

According to Bill Rolston (Fb) (who can be seen in the second image, below), there was a plan last Autumn that Palestinian artists would create their own “international wall” and include murals designed by CNR artists. The Hamas attack on October 7 and the subsequent Israeli invasion on Gaza – now ongoing for 108 days – put paid to that project, and instead art by Palestinian painters is being painted in Belfast in support of Palestine. (Here is an NVTv segment on the project.)

All of the following were painted out: Operation Pagoda, #Unblock Cuba, Jim McCabe, Black Taxi CIC, Springhill-Westrock Massacre, Falls Commemoration Committee, Lenár Lınn, Hunger Strikers (1916). The Nugent-Hughes-McKee, the museum bookmark, Stop The Slaughter In Gaza, and the two anti-Agreement panels (Khader Adnan and Republican Prisoners Still Exist!) remain.

This entry shows images of whitewashed panels and early progress on the first seven of the new murals, taken on January 14, 15, 17, and 20.

Here are links to the originals:

The Land Is Ours – Mohammed Alhaj, Abdullah Al Najar, Rami Al Safadi, Abdel Hamid Fares
(man holding child) – Saïd Hassan
(soldiers standing over children) – Saïd Hassan
(family group) – Ahmad Shaweesh
(Soso and Omar Ashour) – Raed Qatanani
(child and phoenix) – ?
(cooking in front of tent) – Saïd Hassan

The first (left-most) panel will reproduce a mural called ‘The Land Is Ours’ by Mohammed Alhaj, Abdullah Al Najar, Rami Al Safadi, and Abdel Hamid Fares that once stood in a Gaza school; the second, next to the first, is currently blank (see the image above).

The grid and cartoon for a mural from digital artist Saïd Hassan (web):

Another image by digital artist Saïd Hassan, showing soldiers standing over dead children:

Four murals are being painted over what were previously Lenár Linn and Hunger Strikers (1916). The originals for these were designed by Ahmad Shaweesh (ig), Raed Qatanani (ig), ? [please get in touch], and Saïd Hassan (web).

Shaweesh’s piece is a deliberately unfinished image of a group of people, perhaps a family, in distress. Qatanani’s image is a portrait of Soso and Omar Ashour as they sat in a Gaza hospital during the first week of the Israeli invasion.

The original artist of this figure with a phoenix is unknown.

The last of these four murals is by Hassan and shows a woman cooking over an open fire in front of a tent in a refugee camp.

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