Alia Alzougbi, Artistic Director & CEO of Shubbak Festival, reflects on the development of An Artist’s Manual Against Apartheid.
For over 75 years, the world has witnessed the unfolding of horrific violence in Palestine — a violence that has only accelerated and intensified since 7 October. Death and destruction have torn through the lives of artists and cultural workers, their families, friends, and communities, threatening or altogether erasing heritage sites, reducing homes to rubble.
As the genocide continues in Gaza, a quieter war has been unfolding across other parts of Palestine. Palestinian artists and cultural workers — along with their friends, families, and loved ones — are being arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and killed.
This is a moment we will remember. We will remember it for those who passed and for those who have lost too much. We will remember it so that it may be carried forward — to others struggling for liberation, in the name of global solidarity, and in the recognition that our struggles are deeply connected. And that the dream is being dreamt by many.
An Artist’s Manual Against Apartheid was born from many conversations, shaped by the global wave of creative resistance we continue to witness in support of Palestine’s liberation. It is an act of deliberate, intergenerational survival — grounded in truth-telling. It is an act of entanglement: our collective creative cry for justice in Palestine cannot, and must not, be separated from the global fight for justice, for freedom, and for love.
We have learned from our ancestors — across many lineages — that if we do not archive this moment, it risks being erased. It risks being buried beneath colonial narratives that frame the colonised as passive, compliant, or voiceless. But among us lives a deeper truth — a belief in revolutionary love, a dream for a better world, an unshakable faith in humanity, and a cellular wisdom for how to move through this impossible moment in history, with dignity.
An Artist’s Manual Against Apartheid stands on the shoulders of giants. One to highlight is the Nigerian writer, thinker, and philosopher Chinua Achebe who gifted the world these words of wisdom from his culture:
“Until the lions have their historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”
Join us to experience these words lift off the page in the performance So Many Ways to Move by music duo chamæleon, at Kunstraum on 31 May at 7pm. This event, part of Shubbak Festival, is co-commissioned and supported by Counterpoints.
