Stop the Genocide by Nabil Anani

Stop the Genocide by Nabil Anani: 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.

Nabil Anani was born in Latroun, Palestine in 1943. He is a key founder of the contemporary Palestinian art movement. Anani studied Fine Art at Alexandria University, Egypt, graduating in 1969. On his return to Palestine, he began a career as an artist and an art teacher-trainer at the UN college in Ramallah. Anani held his first exhibition in Jerusalem in 1972 and has since exhibited widely in solo and group shows in Europe, North America, the Middle East, North Africa, and Japan.

Anani pioneered the use of local media such as leather, henna, natural dyes, paper-mâché, wood, beads and copper, and other materials. Over the past four decades, he has built an impressive catalogue of outstanding, innovative, and unique art. Anani is also the co-author of several books on Palestinian arts and folklore. He was awarded the first Palestinian National Prize for Visual Art in 1997 by Yasser Arafat. He was the head of the League of Palestinian Artists and played a key role in the establishment of the first International Academy of Fine Art in Palestine. In 2006, Anani was awarded the prestigious King Abdallah II Arab World Prize for Fine Art.