When art attempts to convey the horror of the slaughter in the Gaza Strip

Gaza City resident, visual artist Ahmed Muhanna portrays the famine and bombings in the Palestinian territory. He uses charcoal and coffee beans to illustrate some of what he witnessed during the war.
The charcoal and coffee beans are joined by the feelings trapped in the Palestinian soul: pain, fear, dread, desolation. With these tools alone, the scribbles that emerge from the paper translate the horror witnessed—and experienced—by Palestinian artist Ahmed Muhanna. The cry echoed 3,312 km from Gaza City, in Brussels, where an exhibition of his works, titled "Gaza: Stories of Hope and Resilience" and organized by the European Commission (the executive branch of the European Union) and the UN World Food Programme, sought to convey, through art, the barbarity of the war in the Gaza Strip. "We live in a big prison," Muhanna told Correio, unable to flee Gaza City.

"I was trying to convey the suffering and pain we are exposed to through these drawings. Everything is horrific here. What scares me most is seeing the remains of children, seeing children under the rubble of houses, and seeing the hunger," the artist explained. "With the many everyday scenes I see, I tried to express these scenes, even if it was just a small part. I drew with any material or pen to try to document these scenes. When I recorded them, I was in an abnormal state and with very sad feelings."

For Muhanna, the artist who lives in times of war is the opposite of the one who leads a normal life. "The subject matter, the themes addressed, are very different. I think the artist who experiences genocide and forced displacement is the most worthy of conveying visual messages to the entire world," he observed. "This is a great challenge for the artist and for the human being. I face great challenges when I create my art to carry my message to the whole world. I believe the whole world should feel what we Palestinians feel and go through, in terms of suffering and oppression," he stated.
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