Unmute Gaza Calls for Communities Worldwide to Uplift the Voices of Palestinian Photojournalists

Dozens of artists have joined the worldwide street art movement known as Unmute Gaza, which is harnessing creativity and community to call attention to Israel’s ongoing war. Supporting photojournalists, the campaign aims to shed necessary light on the devastation unfolding each day. Quite a few artists involved have previously been featured on Colossal, including Eron, Faith XLVII, Ernest Zacharevic, Escif, Stefan Krische, Jofre Oliveras, and Sainer.

For decades, Western mainstream media and institutions have displayed a tremendous lack of coverage detailing humanitarian crises in occupied Palestine, with numerous instances of systemic media bias and censorship. Unmute Gaza explains, “Western countries have all firmly condemned the October 7th attacks, but not Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, nor have they acknowledged the root causes of this crisis, including colonialism, apartheid or ethnic cleansing.”

To confront this deafening silence, Unmute Gaza encourages communities all over the world to “print and paste” downloadable artworks. They have appeared in different corners of the world, covering bus shelters, buildings, and storefronts. To create the posters, artists interpreted scenes captured by the last photojournalists on the ground, telling the stories of heartbreak among mothers, fathers, children, and first responders. A striking mute symbol sits in the middle of each composition, compelling the viewer to reflect on the difference between the voices of the oppressed and those of the complicit.

There have been more than 100 days of crippling loss since Hamas’ attack on October 7 that killed more than 1,100 Israeli civilians. Israel’s ensuing campaign has caused an immense death toll primarily among Palestinian civilians, recently surpassing 25,000.

The works included in Unmute Gaza are available to download.

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