Nov 16, 2018

RAMALLAH — Posters have been an important tool of the Palestinian National Movement throughout the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Different Palestinian factions printed and distributed their own posters, which used Palestinian liberation symbols such as raised fists or olive branches and doves to draw attention to their plight and resistance. Palestinian artists' posters, popular at home and abroad, were not only tools to create a narrative about the Palestine liberation, but a means to forge solidarity with other countries, revolutions and people under oppression.

Interest in the so-called “solidarity posters” or “Palestine posters” has waned in the last two decades, but a small exhibition that opened Nov. 13 in the Palestinian Museum aims to revive the tradition through the works of young artists. The posters are the results of a three-day “solidarity revival workshop” in October at the museum, located north of Ramallah in the West Bank.

The young artists created 12 posters that focus on several causes, though solidarity with the peoples of Yemen and Syria are recurrent themes. Haya Kaabneh's two posters express solidarity with Syria, while one of the posters by Haneen Nazzal focuses on Yemen and another on Syrian detainees. A poster by Ahmed Mufeed shows a dagger with the names of Arab capitals inside. “With Yemen until victory” reads its slogan. Visual artist Majd Masri's poster expresses solidarity with exploited African workers and links their plight to that of Palestinian workers, whom she calls "victims of similar persecution.”

Masri tried to create solidarity posters for the first time two years ago but was unhappy with the results. After the workshop instructed by well-known artist Amer Shomali, she was more confident. She told Al-Monitor, “It was important to develop my capacities and widen my experience in creating posters. The workshop showed me how to express my ideas in a [more impactful] way.” Her current poster is simply two hands — one black and another white — gripping each other.

Ahmad Mufeed, a sociology student at Birzeit University and poster aficionado, told Al-Monitor that the workshop helped him decipher the symbolism in posters, especially solidarity ones, and learn how to design his own.