Statement

In my art installation “Precious Flowers” I acknowledge the trauma of my own grief following the death of my husband and my own journey with cancer.

There is no comparison between my grief and that of the personal and collective grief being experienced in Gaza. Yet their grief allowed me to connect with my own trauma and their ongoing tragedy has acted as a wake up call to reactivate my need to explore social, political and justice issues through the medium of art.

I presented Precious Flowers in a previous Exhibition. In this present Exhibition, “Gauze”, I revisit one of the installations mentioned in the Precious Flowers Statement which I had intended but failed to create – “Roses Without Thorns”.

The concept behind this installation was the acknowledgement that the 353 children who were martyred during the 23 day invasion of Gaza in 2008/09 (Operation Cast Lead) were innocents. I felt this concept of innocence related equally to the members of Dr Saeed Abuzour’s martyred family members. Roses Without Thorns could therefore be created for them. Of the 55 Abuzour family members killed, 23 were children and 15 were women.

The Abuzour family are not alone.

An Associated Press investigation identified at least 60 Palestinian families where at least 25 people were killed — sometimes four generations from the same bloodline — in bombings between October and December 2023, the deadliest and most destructive period of Israel’s assault on Gaza. Nearly a quarter of those families lost more than 50 family members in those weeks. Several families have almost no one left to document the toll.

In the case of the Abuzour family, Hazem (Saeed’s cousin) survived as he was outside the house his family was sheltering in when it was targeted and hit by an Israeli F16 artillary shell.  He documents the dreadful toll on his family in a docu-film presented within this Exhibition – “The Abuzour Family Martyrs”

This installation “Roses Without Thorns” is offered as a commemorative tribute to the Abuzour family martyrs though its purpose is not to merely invoke sentimental condolences. It is offered here as an invitation for those interacting with it, to wake up and stand in solidarity with Palestine.

Ilan Pappé acknowledges that this task can be difficult and proffers this advice:

“It is not always easy to stick to your moral compass, but if it does point north – towards decolonisation and liberation – then it will most likely guide you through the fog of poisonous propaganda, hypocritical policies and the inhumanity, often perpetrated in the name of ‘our common Western values’.”

Christine Dawson

2024