The politics of oppression operate on the physical, spiritual, & environmental spheres of influence. When the land is occupied, the coloniser immediately cuts the connection between people and land, eventually cutting the connection within communities, cutting the connection between man and the spiritual, and separating man from spirit from environment.
Renarrating Palestinian Identity: Beyond the White Men's Gaze | Dana Barqawi
Dana Barqawi is a Jordanian-Palestinian multidisciplinary artist. Her art transcends aesthetics and subtly invites the viewer to reflect on socio-political realities.
Her vibrant artworks often portray women protagonists from the pre-Nakba period—depicting how they inhabited the landscape, collecting olives and herbs, tending to children, dancing, and performing their daily chores. Dana’s work is a creative declaration that presents Palestinian culture, identity, and history in opposition to the colonial rhetoric, “a land without a people for a people without a land.”
She has never been to Palestine, yet she carries the story of her motherland, which she grew up hearing, surrounded by creative women who inspired her. She feels a deep connection to the Levant, and beyond Palestine, she has also created artwork that tells stories from Egypt and Iraq.
How was your childhood? Could you shed some light on the early experiences that have shaped your creative path?
I have been drawing and painting as far as I can remember. I’ve always been surrounded by women who painted and made art, so art comes naturally to me as a way to express and communicate.
And I am an architect and urban planner, and studying and working in those fields in this part of the world has definitely opened my eyes onto a path where I want to question narratives and understand the world around me.
So I found myself naturally gravitating towards art as a tool to explore and communicate.
Women often appear as protagonists in your artworks. They are doing their daily chores, collecting water, olives, and herbs, mothering their children, and ultimately merging with the natural landscape of pre-Nakba Palestine. They symbolise tender femininity and resistance at once. What is the process that leads you to visualise their stories?
The photographs that I work with were taken in a colonial context & through a white man’s gaze.
In my work, I intend to insert the indigenous into those photographs and give autonomy to the women & men who are in them.
I do especially connect with the women in my artworks on a personal level. They are our grandmothers and ancestors. I try to imagine their stories, how they lived their lives, and what they might have been thinking the moment the photograph was taken. I focus on the eyes when selecting photographs; I feel that the gaze tells a lot about a person, and there is a lot of intentional direct eye contact in my work with the viewer to create a connection with the person looking at the artwork. And mostly, I let the woman in the photograph inspire me on how she wants to be portrayed; the way she is dressed, her pose, and her eyes really inspire and inform the overall composition of the artwork.
Even though you are not physically in Palestine, your emotional, creative instincts, and intelligence are deeply intertwined with the land. Have you always felt this connection, or was there a particular incident or story that called you to dive into your Palestinian roots?
We, Palestinians, grow up in families that centre on Palestine and the struggle. We spent our childhood watching our parents discuss Palestine. We listen to our grandparents telling us stories about our hometown, about the orange, fig, & apple orchards around their house, about the smell of freshly baked bread in the morning from their great-grandmother’s house, which now doesn’t exist.
The TV is always on a news channel broadcasting the Zionist aggression on my people and my land. In every family gathering there must be a discussion/analysis session among the men on the situation in Palestine and the right way to free it, and among the women reminiscing the good old days or daydreaming about how different our lives would be if the Zionists never came to our land.
So we always feel a strong connection to Palestine, a place most of us have never seen or visited. But it strongly defines our experience and our identity.
I came across an interview where you mentioned that “Palestinians from your generation who haven’t been to Palestine share a strong connection with Palestine.” What about their connection with each other? How does a collective shared experience unite people of the land, even when they are away from it?
All Palestinians have a shared history of displacement and injustice by the Zionist occupation within their families since 1948. This creates a collective experience shared by Palestinians everywhere who want to go back to the land.
The connection with Palestine is defined by standing against oppression, exploitation, and pain. And during the past year, the Zionist aggression on Gaza has unearthed a collective experience and connection among all the oppressed of the world where people connected with each other against a tyrannous Empire that uses the same tactics to oppress everyone, everywhere.
The political, spiritual, and environmental are fundamental pillars that shape the world. However, when we focus solely on politics, this connection is often neglected. Do you believe that by being more spiritually and environmentally involved, we can create radical political shifts?
Definitely. The reality is that even though the connection might seem neglected, it is undeniably there.
The politics of oppression operate on the physical, spiritual, & environmental spheres of influence. When the land is occupied, the coloniser immediately cuts the connection between people and land, eventually cutting the connection within communities, cutting the connection between man and the spiritual, and separating man from spirit from environment.
This is the process of colonisation everywhere and throughout time.
So the process of decolonisation must involve a re-understanding of our connection with the spirit and the environment in a way that is indigenous to us rather than to the white man.
Actions of resistance have always centred on the notion of political liberation of the land in relation to the spiritual, environmental, and community as fundamental pillars that shape the future of a free world.
Your art challenges the dismissive colonial interpretation of the land—not only your motherland, but also Egypt and Iraq. What are the offerings of your story? How does your narrative shift the reality of the past, present, and future?
We all know that history is written by the powerful, and our story has always been handed down to us by the white man, and we adopted these narratives as part of our identity and who we are. Through my work, I intend to question and re-narrate those narratives through our gaze; we should be able to tell our own story. I focus on the land of the Levant, and I question narratives of war, borderlines, occupation, imperialism, motherhood, and land.
People of the Levant share more similarities than differences, and political events in any country have an impact on the rest of the land. Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine—they are all my people, and all oppression is one.
Understanding the history of the land is crucial to understanding how we reached where we are today; everything is connected, and recognising where we went wrong might help us in making better choices for our future.
There is a striking exuberance in the aesthetics of your artworks. The colours, characters, and details are all vibrant, which is, unfortunately, the opposite of present-day reality. It is remarkable that you present beauty against brutal reality. What is your connection to colours, beauty, and vibrancy? Would you consider yourself an optimistic individual?
I use beauty in my work as a tool to attract the viewer, but beyond the aesthetic layers of colour there is a darker political message intended to trigger conversation and start discussions on concepts I believe are crucial in our understanding of ourselves and our experience.
The vibrancy in my work resembles how society tends to look the other way by glazing over its mistakes against humanity.
Yet, I would say I am an optimist; I have a doubtless belief in universal godly justice and that the unjust cannot go unpunished.
Indigenous communities from all over the world have become bearers of resistance and rituals that are essential for shifting the dysfunctional paradigm. What made you explore indigenous identities as part of your art practice?
The struggle is one, and the enemy is one. It is crucial that the oppressed of the world recognise that they are all suffering under and are fighting the same oppressive machine.
The coloniser knows that solidarity among the oppressed of the world is powerful and is the end of the colonial Empire hegemony
In my work, I explore overlaps and similarities in experiences of displacement, land theft, and resistance tactics that are essential for shifting the dysfunctional paradigm.
Poetry has the tenacity to convey the essence of the ineffable. Alongside your artworks, you have mentioned poets who have moved and inspired you. Do you believe poetry unfolds in everyday life? Is there a poem that you are experiencing in this moment?
“Centuries ago
I never kicked a visitor out of my door
& I opened my eyes one morning
my house was stolen, & my lover
was hanged
& there is a field of wounds on my
little girl’s back.
I knew my treacherous guests
They planted mines & daggers at
my door
& I swore by the marks of the knife
No visitor will enter my house
In the twentieth century.
Centuries ago I was only a poet
in Sufi circles,
but I am an erupting volcano
in the twentieth century.”
Poetry by Palestinian poet Samih Al Qasim
In the Arab world, poetry has always been a powerful tool to communicate, express, and mobilise the masses against injustice. I am particularly moved by the poetry of resistance by Palestinian Samih Al Qassim. Interestingly, the Black Panther Party in America has been influenced and inspired by his writings. In my work, I have also used the poetry of Sudanese-Libyan poet Mohammad ELfituri and the revolutionary musical lyrics of Egyptian Sayed Darwish.
We all live in an interconnected ecosystem, and our stories are inseparable. Do you consider your creations to embody this universal approach?
I like to believe that anything anyone does, no matter how small, eventually has an effect on the larger system, and if my work can trigger one conversation or spark a single idea, in due course every small initiative or action will build up and shift the reality we’re living into a hopefully better, more just future.
Visit Dana’s website to explore her work.
Interview by Priyanka Singh Parihar
