Shareef Sarhan, Gaza, Palestine

http://www.artwfg.ps/artist.php?class_id=1&id_artist=1

Windows From Gaza For Contemporary art

We are a group of young plastic artists who connect through mutual ideas, one geographical entity and a constant love of art. And because we believe in team work, and mutual thinking to develop the creative movement of plastic arts,  we always thrive to discover and explore the new and modern aspects of it to figure out how to use it to serve our ambition and talent. We try to do that through constant meetings, holding art affairs, exhibitions and galleries both locally and internationally, and workshops through which we communicate and present our thoughts.

We had many contributions locally and internationally so each one of us has his/her own unique and original vision which reflects our mutual culture, artistic understanding, and persistent attempts to communicate who we are and what we do to  The Other.

WHY?

The place narrows to smother us. The ideas crowd in our minds, and we try to think together: how can we express our reality? “Windows From Gaza ” is our window of self-expression through which we  portray the images we see in this narrow place “Gaza” using  the universal language of art .

Siege and closure are a great daily suffering for people in Gaza which lead to complete paralysis in all life aspects, and definitely the cultural and artistic life has also been damaged as a result to this persistent suffocating situation.

Young artists in Gaza suffer from lack of art supplies, shortage of sponsoring institutions, as well as the deteriorated economics  affecting the society as a whole, especially that they need to purchase highly expensive art supplies.

These factors among others, made us as a group think seriously of looking for support to train young and professional artist and enhance their performance through “founding the first digital studio in Palestine” which we can publish all over the world to help the Palestinian artist put forward his/ her ideas and artistical vision, to give them the chance to get out of today’s hard reality and support them to face the siege wall imposed upon Gaza by letting the world hear our voice though artistic activities locally, nationally and internationally.

The Studio

The idea of “studio” comes to contribute to developing and trimming the artists’ performance in order to produce modern artistic works such as: video art, digital photography and constructive works, by conducting workshops to train them and enhance their performance technically and artfully, hosting well known artists to share their experiences and knowledge of modern Palestinian plastic arts movement. So this studio be a lasting assembly for local artists which enriches the communication and interaction among them.

The “studio” also aims to exhibit the experiences and products of artists to local audience, artists and the culture movement and the Arabic and international audiences through cooperation with several artistic Arab and international institutions.

Objectives of “the studio”:

  1. To train, enhance and develop the performance of young and professional artists in visual modern arts.
  2. To build a solid relationship between the young artists and the local, national and international societies.
  3. To contribute into bringing up a generation of young artists who are interested in practicing and developing  a profession of modern arts.
  4. To preserve the Palestinian artistic identity and enhance it with a modern impression.
  5. To found the first digital studio that specializes in modern visual arts in Palestine.