Fares Ayash

Born in Al Nuseirat

-Gaza, Palestine

Displaced in Khan Younis

There is a story, known to everyone in Gaza today, but never spoken about in the news, and unknown to most of the rest of the world. After long periods of displacement, suffering, and humiliation amid the war on Gaza, this image emerged. It stands for the suffering of displacement and the severe shortage of all means of life. It is known as al Dorgham (“The Lion”), and it refers to people’s shoes.

Throughout the war, the life of shoes has gone through several phases. Months of forced displacement led to a point where most people’s shoes in Gaza had completely worn off. This detail was never spoken about in the media: that so many people no longer had shoes. Eventually, many people only had a plastic pair of shoes provided by the UNRWA agency, and these shoes stand out for their unique shape, material, and bright colors. Over time, due to constant use, these shoes, too, wore out, and became known as al Dorgham, which can also mean “sturdy, strong, and resilient.” It has become a symbol, known to all, that encapsulates the story and suffering of a year of constant displacement throughout the war on Gaza.

Ayash, an artist and professor of art, has taken a radical shift in his work and process. After taking note of the power of an image that can hold the war’s suffering, he has sought to clarify the idea. Ayash began collecting many stories of the displaced. This process led to a video work and twelve works, representing each month of the war on Gaza. These pieces are designed and conceptualized to be executed outside Gaza. These works, along with a short film, will be produced in coordination with the Forbidden Museum following the artist’s design, imagery and direction.

By placing the final production to be executed outside Gaza, Ayash pushes the creative process in surprising directions. The twelve works will be created and designed by Ayash but then will be remade by other artists. Via a message being conveyed from one hand to another, from one vision to another, questions of our shared human experience arise. But Ayash takes the question one step further: the location of the work as well as its creation become deeply intertwined, as they break all rules of display. His film tells the story of a sculpture of a ballerina dancing with dorgham shoes—only her feet and ankles are visible. But the pedestal on which she dances is in another forbidden location, on a mountain in the West Bank, while she is in Gaza, only to be seen whole outside of Palestine. The political situation is so deeply intertwined with the artwork, and the struggle for liberation becomes embodied within an art object that is at once, displaced, imagined, and too real.

With all this, a profound humility expressed in Dorgham that goes beyond its powerful subject matter, and that speaks to the creative act itself as an agent of our shared humanity. Dorgham is not a metaphor, it is a message about the essence of resistance, a people’s struggle, and the creative act.