We embody a collective Palestinian spirit and practice of sumoud (steadfastness).
Palestinian prisoners teach us that sumoud is a revolutionary existence, enacted through patience, resilience, defiance, and devotion to liberation. Sumoud animates our spiritual, emotional, physical, and psychological power and commitment to life beyond colonial violence and authority. We refuse to break under the threat and torture of our colonial and imperial captors. We will not disappear despite settler-colonial designs that mandate our annihilation. We endure and persevere in collective struggle until all prisons are dismantled and all of us are free.
by Beesan Arafat
Beesan Arafat graduated from Jordan University in Visual Arts in 2006, earned her Masters Degree in Screen Design for Film and Television from Kingston University in 2009 and her PhD in Visual and Material Culture at the Manchester Fashion Institute in 2022. In her research, Beesan examines how to establish a conceptual framework that captures and preserves Palestinian heritage by developing modernized wedding costumes through sustained processes. Coming from a Palestinian background, Beesan believes that Palestinian art is intimately and inseparably linked to the Palestinian cause. Her art is a visual expression of resistance and the bond between the peasantry and the land expressing Palestinian rootedness. Her work celebrates the continuity of life, steadfastness and resistance.
The Six Spoons of Freedom was created after the escape of six Palestinian in 2021 from the Israeli Gilboa prison. The six Palestinians managed to dig a hole, presumably using a rusty spoon to escape one of Israel’s highest-security prisons. The men evaded 40 prison guards, three watchtowers, two walls, two barbed-wire fences, and a pack of dogs for their freedom.
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