Diary of Displacement
Charcoal and pigments from coffee, tea, and hibiscus on paper, 2025
This series is the result of a project that Issa began during the war, called My Studio in a Tent, when he and his family were being repeatedly forcibly displaced to seek safety. With each unanticipated and sudden move, Issa had to abandon his belongings– including his paintings and artworks– which ended up forever lost under the rubble.
This led him to paint smaller works from readily available materials such as coffee, tea and hibiscus because they were portable and could easily be stored in his backpack for safekeeping. They are the only works that survived the war: a living testimony to the genocide that Gaza’s children are enduring. In the same way that these works survived these inhumane times with access to materials, the people of Gaza cannot even access food or water and are still steadfast in their will to survive and demand dignity and liberation.
Raed Issa is a contemporary artist born in Al Breij Refugee Camp, Gaza. He holds a diploma in Computer Science from Al Aqsa University, Gaza, and was awarded the Cité des Arts residency in Paris. He founded the Fine Art Program at the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Gaza and is a founding member of the Gaza Contemporary Art collective Eltiqa.
His art explores the themes of vulnerability, loss and bereavement of living under siege and war. He has been exhibited in Palestine, Jordan, Switzerland, Japan, Tunisia, Dubai, Italy, Australia, Ireland and documenta fifteen. In the 2014 war on Gaza his home and the majority of his artworks were destroyed.