Art Against Imprisonment

JOIN US THIS SUNDAY IN UNVEILING THE SUMUD RESISTANCE UNTIL LIBERATION COMMUNITY MURAL! Three days left! Are you coming?

Date: Sunday, October 13
Time: 1:30pm - Sunset (6:30pm)
Location: 401 26th St, Oakland, CA 94612

COVID Protocol: The event will take place outdoors. If you are feeling unwell or have any recent exposures, please stay home and care for yourself. We will have a limited number of masks available onsite.

Accessibility info: This event is family-friendly; we will have activities available for children, but children should be supervised by their guardian(s) at all times. The space will be primarily outdoors, on a paved parking lot that is wheelchair accessible. There will be amplified sound playing throughout. All gender, wheelchair-accessible portable bathrooms will be onsite. Street parking is very limited. Food and beverage will be available for purchase onsite.

BAY AREA: SUMUD MURAL COMMUNITY LAUNCH!

🗓️Sunday, October 13th at 1:30PM
📍Uptown Autobody: 401 26th St, Oakland

With the effort of over a year of tireless community participation and the work of over 50 artists and community organizations, the Sumud Mural is finally complete. As we near the one year mark of the genocide of the Palestinian people and with the current escalations in Lebanon and Syria, it is an important time to uplift, document, and embody the essence of Sumud, or the Steadfastness of Palestinians, here in the Bay Area.

The Sumud Mural underscores the need to produce and continue cultural resistance as a primary front in our liberation struggle, connecting us in the diaspora back to our people in the homeland and across the world.

This project is more than just a mural, it’s also an invitation to come together and activate the space. We hope to create an environment for the community to access political education, creative expression and ways to plug in to forwarding the struggle for liberation in the belly of the beast.

🎨COMMUNITY, JOIN US AT THE MURAL!
🗓️Sunday June 16
📍401 26th St, Oakland
⏰1-4PM

See the Sumud mural come to life ❤️‍🔥 Light refreshments will be provided.

The Sumud: Resistance Until Liberation Mural project is a collaboration between artists and activists in the U.S. and Palestine that explores and confronts the deep interconnections between the brutal systems of imprisonment in the U.S. and Palestine. The mural will serve as a demonstration of the Palestinian Liberation Movement’s vibrancy and a memorialization of this historical moment in our struggle globally and locally. Over 25 local organizations and artists are involved in its creation!

In both the US and Palestine, creating art is often a political act and a testament to the imagination, brilliance, and creativity of people’s resistance to oppression, even behind bars. At this time, as death and destruction rain down on the people of Gaza and Palestine, painting this mural together as a community can affirm our collective commitment to resistance and liberation.

The SUMUD mural will be located across from the iconic Oakland to Palestine mural on 26th street and is also sponsored by Uptown Auto Body and Fender.

Two weeks after the victory of the prisoner movement against escalating repression by the Zionist prison administration, we uplift their success and pieces of art that highlight past victories and the promise of freedom for all prisoners.

Throughout February and March, Palestinian prisoners were organizing escalating acts of resistance including staging sit-ins, refusing meals, shutting down prison sections, resisting security checks and organizing “night confusion” activities. This ongoing resistance was to culminate in a mass and united hunger strike, titled the “Volcano of Freedom or Martyrdom” on March 22, but the prisoners seized a victory before beginning their strike.

The prisoners’ movement forced the zionist government to respond to all of their demands to repeal the repressive measures that were put into place when Israel’s minister of security, Itmar Ben-Givim, took power. These measures included restrictions on water, food, showers, family visits, and recreation and increased violent raids, searches, and solitary confinement. Ben-Gvir pushed to authorize the ex*****on of prisoners and to end funding for their medical treatment. Measures that strip prisoners of citizenship and residency as well as their assets and funds had been approved as well.

The prisoners' collective will rejected the jailer’s control of their bodies and lives, proving that they are the dignified owners of their own rights. The hunger strike is a collective act of resistance and art is inextricably connected to amplifying that resistance. These pieces of art uplift the past victories of the prisoner movement and the promise of freedom.

The first image is from the Art Against Imprisonment online art exhibit - a painting created by a Palestinian political prisoner, Yaser AbuBakr: “It is inevitable that the chains will break." Palestinian prisoners are the vanguards and leaders of the Palestinian struggle. We look to them as the compass that will guide Palestine to liberation. Indeed, their chains will break.

🚨FREE MUMIA INTERNATIONAL CALL TO ACTION on 2/16!!!🚨

Swipe + look in comments for Arabic ➡️

Mumia Abu Jamal is a revolutionary journalist, former member of the Black Panther party, and a political prisoner. Because he fought against American racism and police brutality, he was targeted by the FBI’s COINTELRPO program and wrongfully convicted for a crime he did not commit. He has been unjustly incarcerated for 42 years.

On Thursday, Feb 16th longshore workers in the ILWU Local 10 will shut down the Ports of Oakland and San Francisco to demand freedom for Mumia Abu Jamal, speak to his ongoing legal struggle, and highlight the importance of labor solidarity with political prisoners.

This strike is part of an international call and movement demanding freedom for Mumia. Unions in South Africa and railroad workers in Japan will be demonstrating for Mumia at U.S. Embassies and Consulates.

The struggle against carceral systems and political imprisonment is familiar to Palestinians as the zionist entity holds over 4,000 Palestinians in prison. From Turtle Island to Palestine, our enemies have used prisons as a form of torture and halt to resistance.

Mumia’s freedom is intertwined with the struggle against imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, and racism. This is the hour to fight for Mumia Abu Jamal’s freedom.

‼️BAY AREA‼️
THIS THURSDAY
Join us for an in depth look at imprisonment in Palestine with Milena Ansari of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights association, an organization that supports Palestinian political prisoners held in both Palestinian and occupation jails.

🇵🇸 This Sunday April 17th on Palestinian Prisoners Day

✨Come and hear from these amazing Palestinian artists and hear from about the art they do in honor of Palestinian prisoners & the Palestinian people ✊

✨ Register

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_s3GuI0TcQImvzkch01ljHg

Art Against Imprisonment is hosting this event to mark Palestinian Prisoners Day, April 17th 2022. Palestinians have commemorated April 17th since 1974 as a national tribute to prisoners and their sacrifices, a call to unify the efforts to support them and their right to freedom, and a call for solidarity with their families. This year we uplift the daring Great Escape of six Palestinian prisoners from the maximum security Gilboa prison on September 6th, 2021. We also mark the courageous collective boycott of Israeli military courts by Palestinian administrative detainees since January 1, 2022, now in its fourth month.

Art Against Imprisonment shines a light on the creativity which people in prison use to break through repression, isolation and invisibility. For Palestinian Prisoners Day 2022, we are proud to host Palestinian former prisoners and artists to celebrate steadfast resistance against imprisonment, occupation, and settler colonialism.

Featuring -

Rana Bishara - Palestinian installation artist, painter, graphic artist, photographer and performing artist, based in Palestine

Mustafa Sheta - Palestinian former political prisoner and General Director Jenin Freedom Theater, based in Palestine

Clarissa Bitar - Palestinian oud musician and composer, based in the U.S.

Chris Gazaleh - Palestinian visual artist, musician, writer, organizer and educator, based in the U.S.

Sunday April 17 - 10 am PDT, 2:30 EDT, 8:00 pm Palestine

REGISTER FOR THE EVENT

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_s3GuI0TcQImvzkch01ljHg

For more information contact [email protected]

EVENT SPONSORS: ADDAMEER Prisoner Support & Human Rights Association, U.S. Palestinian Community Network, Arab Resource and Organizing Center, California Coalition for Women Prisoners, Freedom Archives and Palestinian Youth Movement

CO-SPONSORS - Critical Resistance, Jenin Freedom Theatre, Chicago Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression, Palestinian Feminist Collective, Coalition for Civil Freedoms, Release Aging People in Prison, Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies

“Palestinians of 1948 are planted in their lands as the olive trees and refuse to allow others to steal their land.” - Amer Qawasmi, et al.

This embroidered art piece was made by several Palestinian prisoners in Askalan prison on the occasion of Land Day in 1996.

Today marks Land Day, a commemoration of Palestinian resistance to land theft and violent expulsion. Today we remember the martyrs and prisoners who have paid the ultimate price in the struggle for freedom. Today we uplift the connection to land and life that has been safeguarded by the Palestinians despite over seven decades of brutal occupation and colonization.

On this day in 1976, six Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces while participating in protests to resist the Israeli government’s plan to steal 7,000 acres of land in the Galilee. In response, Palestinians rose up in protest across all of historic Palestine. Today Palestinians continue to struggle against imprisonment, expulsion, and land theft for freedom, liberation, and justice.

Visit the link in our bio to view more art resisting the dehumanizing and brutalizing carceral systems from Palestine to the US. There are also opportunities to take action.