300 gsm water color paper, acrylic, marker
 
72 x 72 in (this is a selection from a larger piece)
 
For the past two years, I’ve chosen to bear witness to the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people by Israel. This isn’t new in my practice; since 2016, my work has questioned the narratives we’re sold about this violence. I have watched atrocity after atrocity met with Western silence and complicity. The images haunt my sleep, though I know that will never compare to the reality Palestinians live with every day. I’ve heard the excuses and justifications, and I see how genocide is rationalized in the western world. Land theft, natural resource extraction, and profit for billionaires, funded by U.S. tax dollars. As a human being witnessing atrocities, I cannot be neutral. This work is part of my series Lessons for Humanity, which asks us to see the world as an interconnected whole rather than divided by nationality, religion, or race. To me, there is no “us” and “them”—only the shared energy of the world. What we do to one another will inevitably return to us; history keeps repeating with different names and places, but the same story and a new cast of players. The text in this piece is intentionally dense and difficult to read. It asks you to move closer, to stay present, and to sit with whatever feelings arise as you move through it– this will serve as your mirror. I offer them as starting points for your own research. Question what you’ve been told. Ask who benefits, whose pockets are being filled, and whether what you’re seeing serves the good of humanity, or only a select few. If these words disturb you more than the deaths of the children, families, journalists, doctors, and humanitarian workers they reference, I hope you will consider that nothing built on death has ever been holy. These are selected pieces of a larger whole, and some works could not fit on this wall, including– 355 Bullets Killed Hind Rajab, What Happened to Rachel Corrie, Look Up the Hannibal Directive, How Old Were You When You Decided Killing Kids Was Okay?