‘We can’t afford frivolous art’: Palestinian poster exhibition in London communicates 'urgency' of the moment

A mother leans in exhaustion against a modest house, her arm raised beseechingly towards the sky, as an armed figure walks by. A military bomber flies over a city, its devastation resembling dark roses. These are the two opening images from the Art of the Palestinian Poster exhibition at London’s P21 Gallery, running until June 20 as part of the Shubbak Festival.

The respective works, Ekhtilal by Asad Azi and God, Make This House Safe by Bashar Khalaf, set the tone for political and artistic protest expressed through contemporary poster art that echoes the continuing assault on Gaza.

The exhibition is an expansion of the original show held at Dubai’s Zawyeh Gallery last year, and now includes works by London’s Protest Stencil and the Palestinian art collective New Visions.

“These posters speak very directly,” curator Malu Halasa tells The National. “There's a simplicity in the message. People don't want to go through a whole historical explanation. They want to hear directly from Palestine and that's what these works offer.”

The exhibition is structured around that urgency. It aims to provoke, engage and at times enrage while maintaining a keen curatorial approach.

“I wanted to present the art first so that the viewer can be overwhelmed by the beauty,” Halasa explains. “And then as the mind opens, other ideas can come in. You kind of drop down the barriers of what people think Palestine should be like, or the news headline that they read this morning, or the devastation of children dying that they're seeing on their mobile phones. But they actually open themselves to it.”

In There is Always Palestine in Our Hearts by French-Lebanese illustrator and photographer Aude Abou Nasr, a woman in emerald green gazes pensively over a sprawling city under a sky washed in melancholic blues and purples. “Always Palestine in Our Hearts” is written across drifting clouds in Arabic.

The psychological impact of enduring conflict haunts Sleepless by Mohammed Joha, a Gaza-born Palestinian artist living in France. It’s a stark image rendered in an impressionistic, style – a turquoise sky haunted by the faint outlines of a military drone, depicted in muted greys and greens. Below, a shrouded figure by a hospital bed is either kneeling in prayer or cowering in anticipation of an imminent rocket strike.

“I knew the artworks would open the mind and the heart in a different way,” Halasa says. “A lot of people don't know that there's a very rich art movement in Palestine and they use art as resistance. This is the first time that people are going to walk into a space and see incredibly beautiful and at times very pointed imagery.”

The exhibition widens in scope as visitors progress. Beyond the ramp, fine art prints are joined by new contributions from the Protest Stencil collective – large posters bearing brash messages (“Israel is killing children in Gaza. Again. Have a nice weekend”) and graphics exposing the erosion of Palestinian rights.

“Diminishing Palestinian civil rights is something we wanted to focus on because it’s often ignored. The violence obscures everything,” Halasa notes.

“So when a stencil poster points out that in an area half the size of Northern Ireland, Palestinians are only allowed to use two bus lines, that really shocks people. When you show them that the aquifer beneath the West Bank is not equally shared, that Palestinians do not get to drink from it as much as the Israelis who are not even living on top of it, people are surprised.”

Also included is one of Protest Stencil’s most controversial works, a series of posters styled as covers of Sally Rooney’s bestselling novel Normal People with “boycott Israel” added to the title. The works sparked a backlash when they appeared at London bus stops in 2021, before they were taken down by the authorities.

While not authorised by Rooney, the posters were inspired by her decision to turn down a Hebrew-language translation of her novel Beautiful World, Where Are You in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

These works, Halasa says, mark the latest shift in how Palestine is being discussed in mainstream spaces in the UK.

“These posters from Project Stencil reflect an evolution in language that speaks to our time. Terms like settler colonialism and apartheid weren’t part of public conversation back then. Now they’re everywhere and these posters document that shift.”

Halasa adds that the extension of the exhibition until June 20 also reflects how mainstream British public sentiment is also changing towards the historical plight of Palestinians.

“Yesterday we did a fundraiser at the exhibition and I thought the audience would be old codgers. Guess what? It was like Lebanese tech bros, young lawyers, students, economists working with emerging economies,” she says.

“Maybe we’re entering a time when we can’t afford frivolous art. We need work that speaks to the moment, and that’s what poster art does. We live in a visual world. We need direct messages. Poster art is urgent. It speaks to its time. And right now, the time demands it.”

Art of the Palestinian Poster runs at P21 Gallery, London, until June 20