Art from the Paper Boats zine project.
"Creation is a matter of existence and resistance," says Hanan Habashi, Paper Boats co-creator in Gaza City.

Paper Boats: Contemporary Voices from Gaza

By ,
November 1, 2023

Activism, Outreach and Education

Paper Boats is a collaborative project from Angela H. Brown, Adela Rahmati, and Tamrika Khvtisiashvili in partnership with the Skidmore College MDOCS Storytellers’ Institute Forum. It was first published in August 2021 in the form of a hand-assembled, limited-edition zine including poetry, photography and visual art. As an avenue for 14 Palestinian women living in Gaza to share their artistic work outside of the Israeli-occupied territory and locked-down borders surrounding them, the book was sold at Printed Matter, Inc. in New York City and at a launch event at Modern West in Salt Lake City. Several Gaza co-creators attended the launch via social media. It took close to a year for the Gaza co-creators to be delivered a physical copy of the zine as it is extremely difficult to mail anything to the Gaza strip.

Following the shocking and horrific bombings taking place this past October in Gaza, the Paper Boats Utah co-creators felt it important to honor the voices of their Gaza colleagues and friends one more time—hoping these words are not their last. The following excerpts are from the original Paper Boats release. A second, limited printing of Paper Boats is now underway and available via pre-order at paperboatszine.bigcartel.com. All proceeds will go directly to the makers in Gaza. Follow @paperboatszine on Instagram for more information and check out the interview below in which Lara Jones of KRCL 90.9 FM chats with a few of the Palestinian co-creators. 

Photo of a woman wearing a hijab facing two paintings of the Mona Lisa with bright colors and words altering the well-known image.
“I’m lonely in how I feel during my super-sad moments, so have you also felt this as you’re crying, have you felt that this will be the last time you cry because you just dropped so many tears to the point that there’s nothing left there? But then you cry again and stay amazed by how those eyes function so continuously? I hate them. I hate those eyes. I love them so much.”

Paper Boats Gaza Team: Asma’a Abdu, Alaa Alhattab, Nour AlSaqqa, Israa Alsigaly
Kholoud Balata, Dina Erheem, Hanan Habashi, Raedah Habboub, Malak Hijazi,
Sahar Kalloub, Malak Zakout, Amena Shabana, Haya Sahar Issa, Nadya Siyam.

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