PILE 01: Liberation graphics

CEASE FIRE, STOP GENOCIDE, FREE PALESTINE, END WAR

I nurse my child to bed at night in her dark, warm room. I sing to her and she clutches her doll. Usually after she falls asleep I sneak out to work; my evening hours are precious, few, quiet. But lately I have been lingering there longer, listening to her breathe and feeling her weight against me. I lay beside her, safe in our house, as she snores softly through her snotty nose. And then I scroll social media on my phone. I do not usually doomscroll but lately I doomscroll.

I am enraged. I am heartbroken. The desperation of the Palestinian people is unbearable. The grief of Jewish people around the world is unbearable. Photos of doctors having a press conference from a pile of massacred people. Videos of parents screaming with grief, clutching small bodies. The little thumbnail grid of the faces of Israeli hostages. The list of the Palestinian dead, so many children. I do not want to ever leave my baby’s bed. Can I just stay here?

The Palestinian Revolution Lives, c. 1978. Artist Burhan Karkoutly (Syria). Learn more about Karkoutly and other Syrian artists in this article about the Syrian design archive on It’s Nice That.

I wrote three other complete posts to become my first PILE. Viable candidates! They were ready weeks ago, but I couldn’t figure out what tone to set. Should the first one be about me? Should it be about art? The longer I waited the more clear it became that at this precise moment I must speak about the plight of the Palestinian people.

In moments that demand a lot of us, I do think it’s important to keep it all going: to love the people around you, to gather together, to rest, to savor and cherish being alive. AND it feels really hard to focus on anything else. I walk around my neighborhood and I *cannot believe* people have Halloween decorations with fake blood, silicone zombie bodies half-buried in piles of dead leaves in the front yard. I host a call-in segment on my community radio station and last week I couldn’t bring myself to solicit spooky Halloween stories because the scariest story I have EVER HEARD is… war.

I don’t have anything unique or particularly insightful to say, and I’m ok with that. Adding my voice to the chorus is still important. Speaking together is the most powerful way to speak. I’m another voice saying STOP THIS.

All U.S. Aid, c. 2015. Artist Samia Halaby (Palestine). More relevant than ever.

This newsletter will often be about art, archives, public art, and the power of words and images. Today, I’m sharing some powerful liberation graphics with you, selections from the Palestine Poster Project (PPP), with a spotlight on their Liberation Graphics collection.

The PLO: Triumph and Peace. 1984, by Vaughan (Unknown).

Good design catches your attention. Great design makes you FEEL something. Truly effective design makes you DO something.¹ Under capitalism, this action is often “buy something” but in the case of political posters, it’s more about standing up, speaking out, and offering support.

Palestinians Have Human Rights Too, 1976. Artist Kamal Boullata originally designed the logo and layout seen in this poster in 1977 for use as a bumper sticker. It was subsequently reworked by parties unknown into a poster. His original design did not have Hebrew text. Published by the Palestinian Human Rights Campaign in Washington, D.C.

I found my way to this archive from a re-post on social media², and once I got there something unlocked for me. THIS is how I like to scroll. THIS is how I like to learn: by piecing together the context and nuance of visual artifacts, drawing connections, wandering down tangential paths, and assembling understanding. Doomscrolling the news does not feel good, but exploring a vast and powerful image archive does.

I’m not the only one who feels like visual artifacts can be a gateway into nuanced understanding: the PPP’s creator wrote that part of the impetus for creating such a massive database is to open a new “cultural position” from which Americans, specifically, can explore and discuss the complex history and politics of Palestine and Israel.³

Palestine: A Homeland Denied, 1979. Artist Raili Liaho (France). Published by the Iraqi Cultural Center in London.

PPP lets you browse by iconography. As you’d imagine, Dove offers a different angle than Kaffiyeh. You can explore the symbolism of Orange/Citrus and Watermelon and Rainbow. There are many state-sponsored Zionist posters in the collection too; I won’t share those here but I will say they are visually compelling—a testament to how powerful and persuasive design can be.

The Land of Oranges Will Be Free, 1986. Artist Jamal Al Abtah (Palestine). Published by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Most posters have English-language translations of the Arabic language. Many posters have detailed annotation, offering info about the artist, the poster’s purpose, or external links to articles. They each list who published the poster, which is more important that I would have thought—knowing who funded and distributed a message obviously impacts its meaning.

People are not their government, which I’m understanding more and more each day. When posters come from the people, I see them as accessible, effective, and democratic tools for communication. When posters come from the government, I see them as tools for mass strategic messaging, which can inch quickly towards propaganda and misinformation. Meaning is dependent on scale, intention, and voice. I see all of these nuances as I browse the PPP.

Sixth Anniversary of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), 1975. Artist Helmi Eltouni (Egypt). Arabic version here.

I’m convinced that intuitive browsing is a totally viable way to learn. I click on posters that appeal to me visually, and then I try to figure out what’s going on. For example, I kept seeing posters about Land Day, but I didn’t know what it was. So I read the Wikipedia article about Land Day and now I know what it is. Same thing with Tel al-Zaatar, and the PLO. Unsurprisingly, I am very under-educated about all of this.⁴

These Three Thousand, 1976. Artist V. Domenici (Italy). Arabic / Italian translation: “Attention!...these are the three thousand martyrs of Tel Aza'atar.” I wish I knew how to code because I’d make a website version of this poster that updated every time the 2023 death toll number was updated. Coders, are you out there? Do it!

Liberation Graphics is a separate website with a more guided experience. Its online exhibition Antonym/Synonym functions as a curriculum for learning and discussion, directed at “mainstream Americans.” (Is that me? Yes! Probably!) This collection of images relate specifically to Palestine’s fight for freedom from Israeli occupation. This site offers questions for discussion, and the curator’s writing about the definitions, origins of, and relationships between anti-semitism, Zionism, and anti-Zionism.

The Struggle for Justice, 1970. Published by the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS). GUPS was started in the 1920s and had chapters all over the world. Many collapsed after the 1993 Oslo Accords but the San Francisco State University GUPS chapter is still thriving.

I encourage you to spend some time with these archives, if you are compelled by visual communication and are itching to learn. I have a short attention span and I am severely under-slept. Reading a book is not an option at the moment, a free teach-in⁵ sounds amazing but I don’t know if I can do a whole day, and I am overwhelmed by lists of “further reading” links. I am learning a lot from this poster archive, and I’m invigorated by the power of design and its role as a critical tool for organization and liberation.

Palestine: A Homeland Denied, Artist Pedro Laperal (Spain).

If you’re a visual artist and you feel helpless right now, make an image. Palestinians are asking the world to see them, to recognize what is happening to them, to not leave them behind. Design is communication. Design a poster, a bumper sticker, a t-shirt, a slide for social media. Get iconic. Use the MOST trendy fonts. Make an image that people can’t resist sharing. Ask your friend with a Riso to print 1000 copies. Pass them out, put them up.

Liberation graphics: perhaps the highest use for all the graphic design and illustration skills, Risograph machines, and social media accounts that so many of us seem to have. If you were looking for an assignment, allow me: consider working toward the liberation of all beings to be the most important creative assignment you’ve ever received.

GAZA MUST LIVE, 2023. Artist Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo (U.S.) Image description: in brightly colored greens, white, reds and yellows, it reads in all capped letter forms “GAZA MUST LIVE” against a black background

DOWNLOAD

Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo

made these images for posting, reposting, printing, and re-printing. Large files available for download here.

Just Seeds Collective has a massive and ever-growing selection of downloadable graphics on a variety of social justice issues.

Dignidad Rebelde has Palestine Solidarity posters available for free download.

PRINT

Outlet, a Riso printshop in Portland, offers free protest poster printing services as their schedule allows. Learn more and submit your artwork here.

Irrelevant Press, a printshop in Oakland and NYC, is also offering free printing (as schedule allows) for organizers and protestors supporting Palestinian Liberation.

LEARN

BIPOC Design History offers a course called “Design Histories in the Southwest Asia & North Africa: Voices from the SWANA Diaspora.” You can purchase individual lectures or jump into the whole course. Designers, consider it, especially if you have a job-job that offers a professional development budget.

Catastrophe in Context, a free teach-in offered by the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, coming up on Friday November 3.

---

Thanks for joining me on this show-and-tell. Today’s newsletter (and maybe all of them, forever?) is me trying to lean into this second option⁶:

Please please please call your representatives and demand a cease-fire, stop further aid to the Israeli government, and pledge their support for the freedom of the Palestinian people. You can do this every day! You can also email them. To the people who are protesting in the streets: thank you.

I’ll send another newsletter soon! I appreciate you being here. Want to support my creative practice and nudge me to keep writing in public? Subscribe, share, like, or comment. Pick one option or try all four!

And remember, when you buy bumper stickers, I donate my share of profits to grassroots, non-profit organizations.

Sending love to you all.

1. This is not my design manifesto; I think design can also inform, mis-inform, delight, surprise, speculate, dream, function, malfunction, make-better, make-worse… I’m sure I’ll talk more about it later.

2. @mallorylucille reposting @bilq5ter

3. Dan Walsh, former Peace Corps volunteer and creator of the Palestine Poster Project, received a Master of Arts in Arab Studies from Georgetown University. His 2011 thesis offers a great explanation of the genesis of his personal poster collection, the genesis of the public archive project, and a general discussion about the power of visual artifacts to help guide curriculum.

4. I saw “Tel Aviv, Palestine” written on a 1926 poster and was so confused. I had to go research the timeline. At one point I searched, “What is Jaffa?” I am embarrassed AND think I’m probably not the only non-Jewish American person who might have asked some stupid questions on the internet this month. I am seeing the gaping holes in my knowledge of global history.

5. Via @natalie_so

6. Original words by Radiant Somatics; re-posted into my feed by @willow_germs.