A Tribute to the Women Artists of Gaza
Book Launch and Discussion
Speakers: Inas Deeb, Ihab Bseiso, Rania Jawad, Rana Batrawi, Shareef Sarhan, Vera Tamari, Hidaya Shamoun

Monday, 9 February, 16:00-17:30
Location: the Palestinian Museum and via Zoom
Language: Arabic

In partnership with the Dar al-Kalima University and Department of English Language and Literature, Birzeit University

The Palestinian Museum invites you to an open discussion with creative women artists from the Gaza Strip on the occasion of the launch and discussion of the book Lilies of Gaza – Women Artists in Times of War, edited by Dr. Inas Deeb with the contribution of Gazan artist Rana Batrawi. The book documents the experiences and works of 22 female visual artists from Gaza and presents first-hand testimonies of women’s human and creative experiences under the ongoing genocide, through narratives that address displacement, loss, and destruction, and explore how art and writing have become tools for survival, resilience, and resistance.

Dr. Deeb, with the contribution of Rana Batrawi, brought together earlier and recent artworks alongside personal texts and narratives, resulting in a living document that bears witness to women who continued to paint and write from amid the rubble, under harsh conditions that threaten everyday life. This discussion focuses on women’s artistic and narrative production under genocide through art and writing, and on the relationship between these two fields as spaces for expressing violence and uprooting, and for articulating lives lived under constant threat. It also reflects on how these visual and written works connect pain with creativity, and destruction with beauty, forming a cultural, human, and political document at once. The launch of the book will be accompanied by a display of printed images of the artists’ works documented in the publication, reinforcing the presence of these experiences as vivid expressions of resilience and the persistence of creative practice.

The book was published by Dar al-Kalima University and supported by the Rami Zahi Khouri Innovation and Entrepreneurship Hub.