Laila Shawa
Letter to a Mother, 1994
Lithograph
38 x 59 cm
Edition of 50
© Laila Shawa.
Following the success of the original Walls of Gaza I series (1992), Laila Shawa created a second, larger series in 1994, in an edition of 50 photo-lithographs on paper. Three...
Following the success of the original Walls of Gaza I series (1992), Laila Shawa created a second, larger series in 1994, in an edition of 50 photo-lithographs on paper. Three of the most striking images from the first series were reframed for the Walls of Gaza II series (1994), by replicating the original in a multiple-version format. Here the original single version has been replicated four times within the frame, suggesting that the individual story highlighted in 1992 has been repeated many times over since then.
As the silk-screen process faithfully reproduces Arabic script within the body of the work, it is possible to read the message, daubed in Arabic on a Gazan wall during the “stones Intifada” in the late 80s. For those unable to read Arabic, however, the title gives the essential meaning of the piece, while revealing little else about the communication. In fact, the text is a farewell note written to his mother by a young man, explaining his decision to leave home to join the Intifada (uprising) in order to fight against the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) occupying Gaza.
This image bears out Shawa’s contention that the messages appearing on Gazan walls were anything but mere graffiti. Instead, they were a necessary means of communication between the ordinary citizens under the extraordinary conditions of a full media blackout during a repressive occupation. Presumably the boy writing this message has “gone underground” and what is here recorded is the heart-rending message he is trying to ensure is passed on to his mother. As with other works in the series the original black and white photograph is overprinted with a colour “filter” (the artist’s term) a simple geometric shape that also refers to the idea of universal mathematical truths, which never change. The colour purple recalls a time when the IDF ran out of the white paint they were using, each night, to whitewash over messages, so began to use purple paint instead. The colour purple thus became the de facto colour of censorship, used to overpaint the many messages of anger, hope and despair that were daily posted afresh on the walls of Gaza. In this instance, the diamond-shaped purple lozenges act to highlight and focus attention on the text of the message being transmitted.
© October Gallery, London, 2021.
As the silk-screen process faithfully reproduces Arabic script within the body of the work, it is possible to read the message, daubed in Arabic on a Gazan wall during the “stones Intifada” in the late 80s. For those unable to read Arabic, however, the title gives the essential meaning of the piece, while revealing little else about the communication. In fact, the text is a farewell note written to his mother by a young man, explaining his decision to leave home to join the Intifada (uprising) in order to fight against the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) occupying Gaza.
This image bears out Shawa’s contention that the messages appearing on Gazan walls were anything but mere graffiti. Instead, they were a necessary means of communication between the ordinary citizens under the extraordinary conditions of a full media blackout during a repressive occupation. Presumably the boy writing this message has “gone underground” and what is here recorded is the heart-rending message he is trying to ensure is passed on to his mother. As with other works in the series the original black and white photograph is overprinted with a colour “filter” (the artist’s term) a simple geometric shape that also refers to the idea of universal mathematical truths, which never change. The colour purple recalls a time when the IDF ran out of the white paint they were using, each night, to whitewash over messages, so began to use purple paint instead. The colour purple thus became the de facto colour of censorship, used to overpaint the many messages of anger, hope and despair that were daily posted afresh on the walls of Gaza. In this instance, the diamond-shaped purple lozenges act to highlight and focus attention on the text of the message being transmitted.
© October Gallery, London, 2021.