Exhibition Opening Night: "Art of the Palestinian Poster"

Exhibition of Palestinian posters, animations and films reveals the many facets of vital campaigning and strategic messaging for Palestine. Palestinian artists, including those who laid the foundations for Palestinian modern art, respond to the war on Gaza in meaningful, expressive poster art never before exhibited in London. The anonymous activist group Protest Stencil hacked London bus shelters with ‘subvertising’ posters for Palestine, while the decolonisation collective Visualizing Palestine’s infographics and animations lay bare the cruel history and present-day facts behind the genocide in Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank. Posters are essential tools in the campaign to win hearts and minds, alongside the film A Bunch Of Questions With No Answers (2025) by Alex Reynolds and Robert M Ochshorn. 23-hours-long, it is a record of the questions posed by journalists about the ongoing genocide in Palestine to the US State Department during press briefings between Oct 3, 2023 and the end of the Biden administration. As the endless demands for clarification and accountability were repeatedly met with convoluted evasions, the artists chose to edit them out. 'Without the answers,’ says Hakawati’s curator and producer Elhum Shakerifar, 'the questions become the news itself … A staggering lens into the way the genocide has been reported.’

The Art of the Palestinian Poster exhibition is part of the London-wide Shubbak: A Window on Contemporary Arab Culture festival. Shubbak Festival (meaning ‘window’ in Arabic) is Europe’s largest biennial celebration of contemporary Arab and SWANA (South West Asian & North African) arts and culture. Taking place from 23 May to 15 June 2025, the festival will showcase bold, innovative, and culturally authentic works across visual arts, film, music, theatre, dance, literature, and debates—connecting audiences in London, across the UK, and beyond.