EXHIBITION

The threat and experience of house demolitions has profound impacts on the lives of many young Palestinians. The ISSRAR project set out to understand these impacts from a young person’s perspective and in particular, to explore the different ways young people respond to these experiences.

An important part of this was to recognise the different ways young people make sense of what is happening, what they feel about it, how it impacts both their daily lives and how they think about their own and their community’s futures. This has meant looking beyond issues of humanitarian need and crisis response, and exploring how culture, identity, gender and belonging shape young people’s responses, and what this means for issues of youth voice, participation, learning and civic engagement. In these ways, we have analysed young people’s responses not in terms of victim hood, but in terms of the struggle for sustainable development for Palestinians.

In this exhibition, young people have explored house demolitions through creative practices.  We asked young people to create visual responses to house demolitions that explore the following themes:

• Dignity
• Friendship
• Home
• Hope
• Loss
• Strength

The important work shared here is not only about creative and visual expression. It is also about what it can mean to be a young Palestinian in the current moment, and how young Palestinians imagine theirs and their communities’ futures. It also highlights, as has been shown throughout ISSRAR, that it is critically important to listen to and acknowledge the diverse, creative and often hidden ways young people experience, make sense of and respond to house demolitions.

_{Exhibition event at An-Najah University, September 2021}