“How can a person lose everything he owns and not lose his mind?” Ahmed Aldaalsa, Gaza 2024.
I am a board member at Kunstruimte het Langhuis (Zwolle) and more than half a year ago we had this exhibition called Young In Gaza. We invited 5 female artist from Gaza with paintings and drawings of their daily life. I bought a beautiful portrait of a cat by Fatma Haloupi. We have stayed in minimal contact since then but with that came a new contact, called Ahmed.
Recently as Fatma did, Ahmed messaged me too to ask if we wanted to crowdfund him to help him escape from Rafah. It was this personal contact as well as the feeling of the drop in the bucket that made me consider the possibility of other possible ways to do something.
Since Ahmed and also Fatma are both young artists and thus able to transform their experiences and despair into images and therefore also provide a stage for themselves as well as the suffering of others. I figured, I just need to make them a little more visible and their story tells itself.
Hence I gave Ahmed and Fatma a spot on my website, and there is room for more.
On this guest page you can see more of his drawings affiliated under the description “How can a person lose everything he owns and not lose his mind?
It also includes the link to his and her Instagram and crowdfunding page.
This summer art space the Langhuis hopes to show the personal work of Ahmed, Fatma and other artists from Gaza to tell a universal but very personal story of displacement fear and sorrow. A story that needs to be told.