Poster Roundtable Discussion with Legendary Palestinian Artist Vera Tamari and Friends
Art was and still is perceived as a threat to Israeli authorities. In the West Bank and Gaza in the 1970s and 1980s, there were no official galleries, and artists showed their work in schools, churches, and town halls. The popularity of these exhibitions among ordinary Palestinians also drew an unexpected audience — the IDF. Artists have always been a front in cultural resistance. Forced to apply for permits to exhibit work, painters and sculptors found their artwork censored. Israeli soldiers even conducted studio visits. Outside the occupied territories, political posters was one art form with direct messaging and raised resistance, consciousness, and solidarity among people in the Middle East and further afield. Joining a Palestinian Posters Roundtable discussion is: pioneering Palestinian artist Vera Tamari, Nasreen Abd Elal from Visualizing Palestine, West Bank curator Nadine Aranki and Professor Dina Matar from SOAS Centre of Palestinian Studies, moderated by the curator of the Art of the Palestinian Poster exhibition, Malu Halasa. Some guests in person, others online will explore art in Palestinian resistance and the political and aesthetic impact of Palestinian poster art.
SPEAKERS
Vera Tamari is one of Palestine’s leading artists. Born in Jerusalem in 1945, she was a founding member of influential Al-Wasti Art Center in Jerusalem and the radical artists collaborations that provided the basis for Palestinian modern art, including, as well as the New Visions Art Group. She is a member of the League of Palestinian Artists and Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center. Tamari lectured on art at Birzeit University, where she founded the Virtual Gallery. She also created the Founding Committee for the Development of Cultural Heritage. Tamari has had solo exhibitions in Ramallah and Jerusalem and participated in numerous international group exhibitions.
Nasreen Abd Elal is a graphic designer, researcher, and organizer based in New York City. Since 2020, she has worked as an Information Designer at Visualizing Palestine, an organization dedicated to using data and research to visually communicate Palestinian experiences and provoke narrative change.
Dina Matar is the director of the Centre for Global Media and Communications at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). She works on the relationship between culture, communication and politics in the Middle East, with a special focus on Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. Prior to joining academia, Matar was a foreign correspondent for Reuters in the Middle East. Her latest coedited anthology is Producing Palestine: The Creative Production of Palestine through Contemporary Media, (I.B. Tauris/Bloomsbury, 2024).
Nadine Aranki is a Palestinian curator, cultural worker, coordinator, facilitator, and content producer based in London. She was a Research Fellow at De Montfort University of Leicester focusing on cultural heritage, community needs, and cultural policies. Aranki has worked in the fields of culture, human rights, and education in Palestine and the UK. She co-curated The Many Lives of Gaza, a 2024 touring exhibition that has been shown in London, Birmingham and Norwich. She has written about Palestinian political posters for The Markaz Review.
Malu Halasa (moderator) is a writer and editor in London. She is curator of Art of the Palestinian Poster, at P21, during the 2025 Shubbak Festival and co-editor of Sumud: A New Palestinian Reader
The "Art of the Palestinian Poster" exhibition is part of the 2025 Shubbak 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.
