On Friday, February 9, 6–9 PM, join Palestinian artists Lara Aburamadan, Chris Gazaleh, and Roula Seikaly for a free, all ages film screening, conversation, and artwork presentation.
Reclaiming Our Image through Muralism and Photography is presented by SOMArts in collaboration with Bay Area Palestinian artists. This program is intended to affirm the role of the arts in collective liberation.
Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People (Sut Jhally, 2006) serves as a starting point to understand how mainstream media stereotypes Arabs, normalizes racial prejudice, and influences domestic and international policy. Lara Aburamadan’s Remains a Memory (2024), combines video clips of Palestinian expression, creativity, play, and rest amidst the Israeli occupation.
Artists
Lara Aburamadan
Chris Gazaleh
Roula Seikaly
Lara, Chris, and Roula discuss the power of imagery and the ways their creative practices are rooted in humanizing Palestinian people. How do we tell our own stories? How do we tell people who we are?
SOMArts was established in 1979 as an outgrowth of the Third World Liberation Front. TWLF was an activist group and movement formed by students advocating for campus reform at SFSU and UC, Berkeley. Their goals included addressing issues of racial injustice, promoting ethnic studies programs, and advocating for the rights and representation of marginalized groups, including Black, Latinx, Filipinx, and Asian American students.
For 40+ years SOMArts has centered and amplified the voices of historically marginalized creatives, and fiercely defended the rights of artists of all disciplines. Continuing this legacy, Reclaiming Our Image through Muralism and Photography holds a space for us to gather in solidarity in the call for a free Palestine.
