Liberty, Freedom by Mahdi Baraghithi

Liberty, Freedom by Mahdi Baraghithi: The project launched by Zawyeh Gallery, ‘Posters for Gaza’ aims to shed light on the ethnic cleansing and horrific massacres inflicted on the Gaza Strip demanding cease fire and the recognition of Palestinian rights to live freely on their land with dignity.

Representing a long tradition in Palestinian history, political posters were produced extensively in the seventies and the eighties by the Palestinian Liberation Organization with the contribution of Palestinian, Arab, and international artists. Posters played a crucial role then in supporting the justice of the Palestinian cause and promoting it globally, guided by freedom, dignity, resilience, and the ongoing aspiration for independence, sought by Palestinians.

Mahdi Baraghithi was born in Ramallah in 1991. He is a visual artist who works across a range of media including performance, installation, and collage. Baraghithi explores and deconstructs the representation of masculinity and the male body in Arab societies, specifically in his context of Palestine through the use of materials, such as found images and readymade objects.

He received an MFA from ENSA Bourges, France in 2018, and a BA in Contemporary Visual Art from the International Academy of Art Palestine in 2015. He has participated in many workshops and residences including the year-long Home Workspace Program at Ashkal Alwan – The Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts (2015-2016). He also holds a diploma from the Palestine Film Institute in Ramallah (2010). He exhibited his work in several group exhibitions including Cities Future (2013), Naples, Italy; Cities Exhibition 6 / Lydda – A Garden Disremembered (2018), Birzeit University Museum, Palestine.

His recent work delves into the notions of the body, home, and the mundane through the manipulation of found images and texts. The exhibited works were produced in Palestine, France, and Lebanon, and range from performance to installation to collage, with a focus on ongoing themes of engaging and deconstructing images of the Arab man found in popular, national, and religious culture.