Mahmoud Darwish: Earth is Narrowing Around Us

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Dec 3, 2023 Palestine
Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008)

Mahmoud Darwish: Earth is Narrowing Around Us

By : Sinan Antoon سنان انطون

Earth is Narrowing Around Us

Mahmoud Darwish

 

Earth is narrowing around us

Forcing us into the last passage

So we take off our body parts to pass through

Earth is squeezing us

If only we were its wheat to die and live again

If only she were our mother to have mercy upon us

If only we were images of the rocks

our dream will carry as mirrors

We saw the faces

of those the last of us will kill

in the final defense of our soul

We cried for their children’s feast

We saw the faces

of those who will throw our children

out of the windows of this last space

mirrors our star will polish

Where do we go after the last borders?

Where do birds fly after the last sky?

Where do plants sleep after the last air?

We will write our names in crimson mist

We will sever the anthem’s hand

our flesh will finish it

We will die here

Here in this last passage

Here or here

Our blood will plant its olive trees

 

[Translated from the Arabic by Sinan Antoon. From Wardun Aqall (Dar Tubqal, 1986)]
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Helen Zughaib: Arab Spring (Unfinished Journeys)

Late last year York College Galleries in Pennsylvania hosted Arab Spring (Unfinished Journeys), the solo exhibition of artist Helen Zughaib.

The exhibition’s featured paintings, installations, and conceptual works were created between 2008 and 2016. In these years, Zughaib watched the 2008/2009 attack on Gaza from afar, responding with scenes of grief-stricken, weeping women paralyzed beneath the fall of bombs. She also returned to her native Lebanon for the first time since fleeing war-torn Beirut in the 1970s, and produced a series of text-based paintings. Later she was hopeful when uprisings swept across North Africa and the Middle East, cloaking her figures in spiraling floral patterns; but soon began to document the number of Syrian civilians killed since 2012 with a series of public performances and related images. More recently, she has created a number of conceptual works that describe the difficulties of the mass migration that has swept across Europe from North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, particularly for children.

Narrated by the artist, the short film below (produced by York College Galleries) takes viewers into Arab Spring (Unfinished Journeys), revealing what inspired many of the included works and how concepts and forms aim to record the mounting devastation of this time.

Thanks to Matthew Clay-Robison, director of York College Galleries, for allowing Jadaliyya to feature this film.  

Helen Zughaib at York College from Jadaliyya on Vimeo.