The Art of Ruin: From the Current Narrative to the Resistant Narrative

By Fatima Belaiti

Since humans realized that creativity could break down walls and cross barriers, art became a weapon no less sharp than the sword or the pen. It guards memory, exposes truth, and stirs the conscience. Throughout history, art has served as a refuge for oppressed peoples, confronting repression on their behalf and protecting their cultural identity.

From the inscriptions on ancient Egyptian temples that immortalized victories, to resistance songs in the Andes mountains, all the way to revolutionary graffiti in impoverished Latin American neighborhoods, art has remained the voice of those denied a voice.

In the Arab world, this role grew stronger during colonialism and liberation movements. Sheikh Imam’s songs ignited awareness, Saadallah Wannous’ plays revealed tyranny, and the murals of Beirut and Algiers turned city streets into open newspapers.

These works were not merely aesthetic, they functioned as symbolic ammunition that shattered walls of silence.

In Palestine, art has transformed since the Nakba into an existential weapon against erasure and forgetfulness. The drawings of Naji al-Ali, the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s posters, refugee camp murals, and diaspora songs all built a visual and sonic narrative that never stopped resonating, despite oppression and displacement.

With the ongoing war on Gaza since 2023, art has become not merely documentation but a form of rescue, rewriting the narrative and breaking the monopoly of dominant media. Every image, every color, every rhythm declares that an artist may be bombed, but art cannot be.

Living testimony rises from the heart of this experience.

In the film The Mission, images of blood intersect with the sounds of medical devices as surgeon Mohammad Taher moves between Gaza hospitals. The work does not only document emergency scenes, it transforms the doctor into an icon who archives war through his body and steadfastness.

The film premiered at the Amman International Film Festival, then toured Europe, turning pain into a visual testimony that haunts the global conscience.

Away from festivals, local initiatives emerge as part of cultural resistance. According to a report by Arab 48 (August 5, 2025), a small exhibition showcased artwork made from local materials dominated by red and black, symbols of blood and night, though glimpses of hope slipped through their details.

From within the rubble and inside a cultural center turned into shelter, the Childhood Happiness initiative was born, organizing art workshops for displaced children. More than thirty paintings were produced within ten days. The paintbrush became a breathing space, a soft form of resistance against bombing and siege.

In cinema, the film Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk (Palestinian–Iranian–French), directed by Sepideh Farsi, stood out after participating in the 2025 Cannes Festival under the ACID program. The film documents the life of Palestinian photographer Fatima Hassouna, who was killed along with ten members of her family, leaving only her mother alive.

The film relied on recorded WhatsApp calls due to war-imposed restrictions. Hassouna’s pictures and the sound of bombing converged on a single line between life and absence. She remained present despite her death, bearing witness to ongoing extermination and leaving the world her deepest will: no silence anymore.

Gaza did not remain confined to its borders. In Naples, Italian artist Edoardo Castaldo presented Time Stopped in Gaza, where clocks representing world cities hung in a row, but Gaza’s clock alone was frozen and its glass shattered, as if time had paused forever at the moment of bombing.

These artistic works must be read through the lens of art-consciousness theories. Narratology helps us understand art as a multilayered text that rebuilds the story rather than simply records it.

Every image created under bombardment becomes a resistant narrative redefining life and death while countering erasure. Framing theory also helps us interpret how these works are presented and received: Gaza’s images in London and Paris galleries function as human-rights testimonies, while within Gaza they stem from an emotional frame that nurtures resilience and restores hope.

Palestinian art emerges from a mobile symbolic network that resists colonial narrative by constructing an alternative discourse grounded in lived experience.

These examples reveal not only aesthetic presence but also intellectual and political power that secures the battlefield of awareness. Palestinian art in Gaza and the diaspora produces a narrative rooted in real experience, while the Zionist narrative restructures its discourse in increasingly persuasive ways that can even penetrate parts of Arab audiences.

This makes art a moral and political necessity, capable of protecting collective memory, preserving identity from distortion, and restoring the centrality of the Palestinian human being within the story.

In conclusion, these works are born from fire or exile, yet cannot achieve their full impact without protection, continuity, and conscious transmission across generations.

Art may not overturn military power, but it remains one of the most enduring weapons of resistant memory, the final guardian of the story.

Fatima Belaiti – Educator and researcher interested in arts, human narratives, and contemporary issues.

The opinions expressed in this article are solely the author’s and do not represent the views of Nisaba Media.