The Museum of Islamic Arts & Heritage (MIAH) Foundation invites you to come and see the exhibition, The Many Lives of Gaza: Refugee Camps, Resilience and Return. This exhibition has been curated by Nadine Aranki & Dr Meg Peterson in association with The Palestinian Museum and is being hosted by the MIAH Foundation Islamic Arts Gallery

The Many Lives of Gaza narrates the story of Palestine through the Gaza Strip, or Gaza, exposing visitors to the daily life and reality of Palestine, and the Palestinian struggle for liberation.

Before 1948, The Gaza Strip was an area of Palestine vibrant and full of life comprised mostly of villages and fishing towns. During the Nakba (Catastrophe), Zionist militias, from which the apartheid state of Israel emerged in 1948, ethnically cleansed the Palestinian people and captured their land. They destroyed over 500 villages, killing 15,000 and displacing 750,000 Palestinians. In Gaza alone, around 130,000 refugees arrived from other towns and villages in the surrounding area. Palestinians, however, managed to rebuild their lives in the refugee camps with limited resources.

Today, Gaza hosts eight refugee camps, and 2.3 million people, including 1.3 million refugees from surrounding Palestinian villages and cities destroyed by the Israel regime. Palestinians and international experts alike have condemned these actions claiming that the aim is to eradicate Palestinian presence and steal land. Following the 2006 siege and the war since October 2023, there have been international calls for ceasefire amid reports of war crimes and genocide.

Despite this, Palestinians continue to live in this land, challenging colonial realities with resilience. Through visual arts and photography, they have recorded abundant memories of themselves and their ancestors. Despite the often-heard claims in Western discourse, this exhibition asserts that it’s not complicated: against colonial greed and violence, a people has struggled for their liberation for over 75 years.

Exhibition Preview is on Thursday 8th February 2024. The exhibition continues from 9th-11th and 14th-16th February 2024 (12pm-6pm).

Please note: due to the urgency of this exhibition, the MIAH Foundation did not have the advance opportunity to raise the funds required to host this exhibition. We do not have an entry fee, but ask that you contribute whatever you are able to help cover the costs of bringing this exhibition to Birmingham.