On Wednesday evening, Vision visited Norman Rea’s space in Derwent for the opening night of their new exhibition ‘Cultural Resistance, Celebrating Palestinian Art, Culture and Heritage’, hosted by Norman Rea and York Palestine Solidarity Society.
The exhibition aims to provide a platform for Palestinian art and culture and to challenge stereotypes and foster solidarity with the Palestinian people. It also aims to offer visitors a glimpse into the rich history, heritage and culture of Palestinians.
Over 200 people attended the event, which allowed visitors to see the exhibition, listen to poet Nadira Alom and take part in an auction.
Among the artists showcasing their work was Nadira Alom who performed three pieces of spoken word poetry in response to the events and aftermath of October 7th.
The poems chart three periods of time since October 7th;, with one being written directly after the attacks, one at the 6 month mark and one in between these time frames. Nadira asks us to notice the differences or, more markedly, to notice the similarities between the poems as we listened. Her poetry contained themes of youth, Islam and the sense of watching the world watch a genocide unfold and do little to react.
Speaking with Narda after the event, Vision asked: Why is it important for you to be here today?
“It’s so important for me to be here because it’s been six months of this genocide and it feels like nothing is happening in, like, the right direction, and I feel so hopeless, like the only thing I feel like I can do is pick up a pen and write. A few times I’ve performed at some of the protests, and I try to go to as many of these Palestinian events as possible to read my poetry because it’s the only real way I know I can make a difference.
“We can all get stuck in this sort of thing where it’s like well ‘I’m just me, I can’t do anything about it’, but talking about things can make a difference. The fact that we’ve been like boycotting and being outspoken has made an impact because there’s loads of examples of stuff like this happening say, for example, in Congo, there’s a silent genocide because we aren’t talking about it. It is a ‘happening under the radar’ kind of thing but it’s just really sad.
“I’ve always used writing as an outlet for me and it’s just like, we need to not smother the voices of the Palestinians but raise them up by giving them the spotlight and using poetry to kind of highlight them instead of making it about yourself like we said.”
The exhibition also contained a range of different art forms, showcasing photography around Palestine, sculptures, ethnography, paintings and embroidery, among others, as well as having various posters from protests. Various items were auctioned off, to support a fundraiser for University of York alumni Fadi Hania and his family.
The exhibition ‘Cultural Resistance, Celebrating Palestinian Art, Culture and Heritage’ will remain on display in the Norman Rea Gallery until the 10th of May, with a spoken word event taking place in the space on May 1st.