What does it mean to create art under a brutal colonial system? To make beauty in the midst of struggle? In this episode, Palestinian visual artist Nabil Anani reflects on the First Intifada and the experimental spirit it sparked. He shares why art must be rooted in its environment, how creativity becomes a political act, and what it means to shape a visual language that holds memory, place, and defiance at its core.
This episode is hosted by Tala Elissa. Tarwida’s lead producer is Tala Elissa. Our executive producer is Zina Jardaneh. Our associate producer is Zeena Shehadeh. Social media by Leen Karadsheh. Research and copywriting by Dima Sharif. Branding by Sara Sukhun. Theme music includes excerpts from Clarissa Bitar, The Popular Art Centre - مركز الفن الشعبي & Rim Banna.
This conversation was recorded on April 4, 2025 and is conducted in Arabic. You can find the English transcript through this link.
Tarwida is a series of conversations that bring Palestinian arts, culture and heritage to the forefront. We hear from artists including writers, filmmakers, musicians, architects, culinary practitioners and more about their very own Palestine.
In a nutshell, if you want to know more about (Creative) Palestine, this is the place to be.
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Relevant links and Resources:
Follow Nabil Anani on Instagram @na.anani
Check Anani’s artwork on Zayweh
Learn more about the Palestinian Museum’s new edition of New Visions
Watch Anani working on his latest piece
Buy Anani’s book Palestine, Land and People
Buy Anani’s book The Land and I
Buy Anani’s memoir Emerging to the Light
For a very long time, Hebron has been famous for leather craftsmanship. The trade has been passed down from grandparents to grandchildren over the course of 100 years. As you walk through the streets of the old city, you can smell the scent of natural leather wafting from the shops that sell sandals, jackets, and handbags — all "Made in Hebron”.
Like many people from Hebron, our guest today has a special relationship with leather. But the difference is, instead of using it to make clothes, he worked with it the way an artist works with their colors and brushes — to create a new form of art.
The Palestinian artist Nabil Anani was able to see leather as more than just a material. He sees art, an archive, and beauty. He interacts with it, and plays with it, like a child discovering a new world. Anani is one of the founders of the Palestinian contemporary art movement and part of a generation that believed in experimentation, creativity, and the value of local materials.
This interview was recorded on April 4, 2025.
I am your host, Tala El-Issa, and you are listening to Tarwida
Tala: Mr. Nabil Anani, welcome! It's an honor for me to be here with you in Tarwida.
Nabil Anani: Thank you very much. Thank you.
Tala: While I was reading about you, I felt like we had to do a whole podcast just about you. I mean, not just one episode, we need tens and tens of episodes just so we can get into your personal journey, your professional journey and all the great work you've done for Palestinian art. But I mean, we want to deal with what we have; we have one episode. So let's start with the beginning. Tell us how you entered the world of art.
Nabil Anani: When I was young, I had a passion and talent for art. It started at home. When I went to school, it increased. When there were art classes, art teachers, and so on. I became fond of drawing. But every drawing was done using a pencil and rubber, the watercolors we had, then the students in the class started to say, there’s the artist, there’s the artist. I used to draw things, and they would show them to the teacher. I didn't want to show them to the teachers. So they took it and showed it to the art teacher. Oh, excellent, excellent. And that's how they encouraged me. And... and when I went to high school, they told me to draw a map of Palestine, to draw the map of the Arab world, to make these visual aids. In plain words, everyone looked at me in my environment and said, This is the artist, the artist. I mean, they gave me the title, as they say.
Tala: [laughing].
Nabil Anani: And I made my first drawing studio on the ground floor of the house; the house had two floors. There was a storage room downstairs, so I made a drawing studio. I sat down, my friends came, and I drew and hung paintings on the wall. You know, it was like the beginning. It was like my private dwelling, they say in Arabic. Private dwelling..
Tala: And there was a school principal, if I'm not mistaken, who came and asked about you. He was a big believer in your future and even compared you to Munzir, the first in the class. I found it very funny.
Nabil Anani: [laughing] Yes, that’s true
Tala: [laughing] I’m curious to know what Munzir’s position was in the story.
Nabil Anani: No, they're good at memorizing. I didn't like to memorize.
Tala: [laughing] You didn't really like school
Nabil Anani: No, I didn't like school because the nature of teaching wasn’t educational. They didn't know how to educate back then. It’s a little better now. But school was more like a place for the army, what do they call it?
Tala: A military camp?
Nabil Anani: A military camp for an army. Lining up, etc… Have you shaved or not? Do you have a napkin or not? Are your nails short? etc… It was all orders.
Tala: Right. And then, when you decided to continue in the art field and came to Alexandria to study at the university, your parents were not very happy. Your father was not happy.
Nabil Anani: Yes, He used to tell me to study anything I want, except art. [laughing] He would tell me that art doesn't make money. What do you want in this? What do I want to do when I go back? What is an artist? He didn't like it. He would say to me, for example, to go back and teach geography, history, Arabic, and so on. It's reasonable, but what is art? He couldn’t comprehend it. Because our entire society... takes art as a decoration or a fantasy. They don´t take it for making money, for work, for the environment, for society. They don't think art is for that. That's their opinion. Of course, I didn't listen, and I followed my hobby. That’s what my hobby is...
Tala: Weren’t you afraid that you might face difficulties with, for example, financial stability when you graduate and you don't find a job?
Nabil Anani: No, I didn't think about it at all. The important thing was to graduate and return to Palestine, and that was the most important thing for me. But in fact, I found a job as soon as I came back. As soon as I came back. In the office of the teachers’ Institute, the United Nations subsidiary. So I worked immediately in Ramallah, even though my home is Halhoul. And God brought me to Ramallah, which was good. If he brought me to Hebron instead, if I stayed in Hebron, I probably wouldn’t have become an artist, I don't know. [laughing].
Tala: But why? Why?
Nabil Anani: That environment is a commercial environment. It’s an environment… Honestly, there’s a cultural backwardness with these things. Not like in Ramallah, there’s a mix in Ramallah, Christians and Muslims who come from cities and villiges. This mix creates a good culture.
Tala: And since you’ve now become a teacher, have you been able to provide something different than the teachers who gave you a military life?
Nabil Anani: Yes, of course. Look when I first came to the Teachers Institute. I was a young man, my beard hadn’t grown out properly like how it is now. [laughing] I became active. Since I lived there, I was active with the students. And I created a club for those who draw at night, which I would supervise. They would chisel, make casts and do other things with clay. There were materials, there was a good fund for arts. And we would put on an exhibition every year. We’d do an exhibition every year. I became very active with them. There were even some artists from Gaza that I taught, are still artists. Some are still here to this day.
Tala: Mr. Nabil, the poet Mourid Al Barghouthi described you as more than just an artist. He said you’re a novelist, poet, architect, historian. Do you agree with him?
Nabil Anani: He exaggerated a bit. [laughing]. Look, it’s because he read my memories. He wrote the introduction. When I was a child, I also liked sciences. I did some things like, for example a rocket. I don’t know if you read about it. I would get a medicine bottle, poke the bottom, use matches and close it properly. I’d make a plane and attach it, and the plane would fly. It would in fact fly and fall when it would run out of fuel. There were some other things related to it... I loved everything related to art. Everything is related to arts, even sciences. I love sciences using art, because sciences has surprises. When you invent something, you create something that didn’t exist. That’s why I loved it. So, when I was a child, I would do a lot of these things that are related to the environment, art, engineering, science, etc..
Tala: All of it; you combine it all. And I presume you were able to see art in all the educational fields.
Nabil Anani: Yes, yes. For example, there was something I made. We have an apple orchard. I wrote the word Allah, the word Allah, I cut it into paper and taped it to an apple in the sun’s direction. I left it for a week. I removed the paper and saw Allah written on the apple. People would come and say Praise God. It was a strange thing, it was science, nothing more.
Tala: Yes, yes, yes. Do you like to experiment and try things?
Nabil Anani: I like to experiment to this day. My studio is my lab, you’ll find everything in it, everything is there. From sumak to zaatar to colors to dyes, acids, it has everything in it. It’s all there. and experimentation is very important to me, I never like to draw anything traditional. You know this canvas, this color and this brush. No, I try to look for new things from nature, go to the spice shop, buy materials like peppers, hot sauce, tumeric. I get all of those things and experiment, even with color; I experiment on the color itself.
Tala: Very beautiful. Your first exhibition in the 70s was about the Palestinian village. And the village was a constant thing in a lot of your work. What does the village mean to you, and why were you very focused on it?
Nabil Anani: Look, I.. In Halhoul, my village, it was a village back then now it has lot of residents and is more like a city. But the neighbourhood where my granddad lived, I liked to play in it, it was very beautiful. Its architectural design was very beautiful. Arches, domes, stairs- we’d hide there, play hide and seek and stuff. We’d go up on the roofs. It was nice. That remained in my memories. They say there’s a child inside every artist, and it’s true. Childhood always stays inside the artist. Therefore, when I express myself, the village remains in my vision. whether it’s embroidery or villager, the life in the countryside. For example, what was inside the house, its interior design, it has a very popular design, convenient for living. I have liked it since then. When he said in engineering, science, art, I don’t know what else. He was right in some of the things.
Tala: [laughing] In my opinion, he didn’t exaggerate; I think he was right.
Nabil Anani: [laughing] Maybe.
Tala: And we can probably add a chemist, physicist, and..
Nabil Anani: Thank you.
Tala: A rocket scientist, too. Since you used to make rockets. [laughing]. Mr. Nabil, after the Naksa, the occupation declared military orders that banned any cultural, artistic expression. And the orders were absurd, like, for example, order number 101 that incriminated drawing or printing of anything with political significance. And here, the political significance can just be Palestine’s flag or even the flag’s colours. How did these orders affect you and your art and the group of artists present during that time, in the 70s and 80s?
Nabil Anani: Honestly, it didn’t affect us. We kept going, we didn’t listen to them. They kept tabs on us through the exhibitions. How would they know? Come to our house? No way. For any exhibition, the intelligence officers would come to the exhibitions. If they see anything against Israel, they would close the exhibition, close the gallery. One of the times, there was an amature artist, he made some things… it wasn’t incredible art, but it was direct, for example a demolished house, dead doves, and barbed wires, hands coming out.. it was more direct. The intelligence officers came to the exhibition and immediately confiscated 5 paintings, closed the exhibition, sealed it, and the next day they summoned us. Us, the people who curated the exhibition and gallery. and we went to the intelligence office. They of course asked us what are you doing? All your exhibitions are against Jewish people and Israel, and this is not allowed. You can be tried and imprisoned for this. He basically started threatening us. We told him that’s our gallery, but we bring in artists, and this is all opinions. No, no, that’s not allowed; he didn’t accept it. we’d ask, what’s not allowed? What’s not allowed? He said..
Tala: What a crime, to draw a dead dove. What a crime.
Nabil Anani: He said.. In the world today, people draw abstract. and in the world, in modern schools, they follow it. Why draw something so directly? We told him, okay so, these are colors, we draw with them, etc.. He said, No, I’m telling you now, drawing the Palestinian flag is not allowed, barbed wires, not allowed. [laughing]. I swear to God. Dead doves, not allowed. prison bars, not allowed. the prisoner, not allowed. But he focused on the flag. It’s prohibited to use the flag’s colors. The red, green, black and white. We said..
Tala: What’s left? [laughing].
Nabil Anani: We told him, That’s all the colors; how will we work? He said, No, you can work, but don’t draw the flag. He told him.. a guy named Issam, an artist who was with us, our colleague, told him, what if we drew a watermelon? It is red, black, green and white. He said, Draw a watermelon, that’s not a problem, but don’t draw the flag. [laughing]. He said if you draw a flower, every petal a color, white, red, green is not allowed.. and black, is not allowed.
Tala: Oh God, oh my God.
Nabil Anani: I swear to God, it was like that.
Tala: Was it since then that the watermelon became a symbol?
Nabil Anani: Yeah, the watermelon became a symbol afterward. After this story.
Tala: Issam probably didn’t expect this much promotion for watermelon.
Nabil Anani: Yes, he passed away, the poor guy. Yes.
Tala: May he rest in peace.
Nabil Anani: bless you.
Tala: Mm.. But you’re saying it didn’t affect you, so you weren’t scared of this visit?
Nabil Anani: In our studio, we do what we want; afterwards, we… I’ll tell you, they used to confiscate our work and close exhibitions. But we wouldn’t listen to them. They would come; sometimes there wouldn’t be anything, and sometimes if they see something they’d say to remove the painting and we would. It would happen like that. but generally, we didn’t listen to them. Every one of us would express ourselves in the method we’d find suitable. You know, back then, in 1967, it’s not that far, there was a sadness within all people. People’s mentalities were really affected in 1967. Tragic, it was a big tragedy. Therefore, as artists, we are part of the people, so we expressed about 1967, and we expressed about.. and afterwards, we started expressing about the settlements, the wall, about Jerusalem. We used to go to Jerusalem.. I used to go to Jerusalem daily, or two to three times a week. I stopped going to Jerusalem because they prohibited it unless with a magnetic card, etc.. and made it very difficult for us. So I stopped going to Jerusalem. Honestly, it’s been maybe 10 years since I haven’t entered Jerusalem.
Tala: and despite all these constrictions, you were able to unite and meet and, on the contrary to create a whole movement for artists. And during that time, I presume you formed the visual artists association, correct?
Nabil Anani: Yes, in 1975.
Tala: in 1975, after you met Mr. Sliman Mansour?
Nabil Anani:Yes, after I met Sliman Mansour. After I met him in 1972 it was my first exhibition in Jerusalem at the YWCA. After that, we started doing meeting after meeting until we focused on making the artists association. This association- we worked really hard on it, and it took up a lot of our time. Even though we were employed, we would have meetings in the afternoon about what we were going to do and bring… We did around 12 local exhibitions, a travelling exhibition that would go from Ramallah to Jerusalem, to Nazareth, Umm al-Fahm to Gaza, come back to Nablus, to Jenin, it would travel around. We started with 15 artists in the beginning, then we had around 200 artists in the end.
Tala: This was of course, a nightmare for the occupation. We’re confiscating, and you’re creating an association.
Nabil Anani: Yes, they didn’t want an association. As you say, we didn’t have a headquarters because we knew that headquarters would be closed, so we would do it from our homes. We had meetings in homes. Later on we had a headquarters.
Tala: Why do you think the occupation fears it this much?
Nabil Anani: Of course. Culture and art and poetry and music and everything like that make the identity. It forms the identity. And they don’t want the Palestinian identity at all, not a bit. They want to erase the Palestinian identity. We continued our journey and started doing exhibitions abroad. We did one in London, America, in Japan. There wasn’t a place that didn’t invite us, we would be invited from abroad to do exhibitions.
Tala: The first Intifada also directly affected you and created a new method of resistance in you.
Nabil Anani: Of course, of course. Look, the first Intifada, we, the artists, saw ourselves as kids, we saw the boy holding the rock in the street more important than us. What is the art? We’re doing art? It doesn’t do anything. We started having meetings to think of what to do. so we said we wanted to do, firstly, publications were coming out weekly to the people from the general leadership of the Intifada. One of them, the 7th I think, number 7, said to boycott Israeli and Western products, practice self-sufficiency, plant the land, farm it, plant corguettes, poultry, basically try to depend on yourself. on the basis that maybe one day we’d do a civil disobedience. That self-sufficiency and relying on agriculture, etc.. will keep us alive. I even remember in the first Intifada, we made schools and I taught art, through volunteering of course. Every person specialised in a subject taught. We used to go to a grove near our home, go up a mountain and to the grove, we’d sit in the grove. We even got wood and painted it black, and started writing with chalk, write and teach the kids etc.. because the school were closed, they were shut. Because as artists, we said, what can we do? we’re meant to have a role, we met. Myself, Sliman Mansour, Vera Tamari, and Tayseer Barakat, and decided to create a group. We’re of course, part of the association, but we wanted to do a separate group ourselves because we were intellectually compatible. We created a group and called it Experimentation and Innovation (New Visions). New Visions, we gave each of us in the group 10 days to decide what local material they wanted to use based on the boycott. Boycotting Israeli products.. We don't use colors, we don't use important products. For example, I chose leather, I remember in Hebron there was a leather factory. I went.. I never visited it, but I used to pass by it and knew there was a factory there. So, I went and saw how to make the leather, clean it, and the product line; then it goes to tanning. I started buying it before it went to tanning. I wanted to put colors on it, you know, use the colors. I bought it and started experimenting, experimenting and innovating, I experimented until I came out with.. Others used mud, straw, and some others, like Tayseer Barakat, he used burning on wood. The old wood, things like that. Vera Tamari took images of Yafa and Heifa, she’s from Yafa, and made them with ceramic from local and external exhibitions, Europe and elsewhere.
Tala: It was very interesting to read about this experiment because, as I said, a lot of time we think of art as isolated from politics and resistance, but in fact, especially regarding Palestine, it might be a motivator. And what you did is the biggest evidence of this.
Nabil Anani: True, that’s correct. In crises, art always elevates, I imagine, and I always try to give people a push, a cultural push, a push… A mental kind. I remember even in the October War, they put music, Egypt’s patriotic music. Art always grows in crises.
Tala: I also assume because it also reminds us we’re more than just a body, it reminds us we have creativity, imagination, united awareness, so all these things blaze during crises.
Nabil Anani: That’s correct.
Tala: It was very inspiring for me to learn that the Palestine Museum supervised the second version of New Visions. You did an incredible work among this group.
Nabil Anani: That’s correct.
Tala: How did you feel trying to remember the same phase you went through in the first Intifada, that your group of four artists coming up with new ideas, unfortunately, due to tragic situations.
Nabil Anani: Ehh. For me, I spent around 10 years working with leather, only leather. I didn’t work with colors. Then, leather started to decline, and colors entered my work; I returned to colors. I missed the colors in plain words. [laughing]. Then the Museum came and asked us to make something, work from New Visions. This encouraged me to create something new, a new perspective, a new experience. My experience increased, and my work became bigger and larger. My painting is 17 meters with a height of 3 meters.
Tala: Wow.
Nabil Anani: Yes, things changed. I worked on this for around 6 to 7 months. It made me like working with leather again. I returned to leather, I now work with leather. The museum’s work is finished, and I am now participating in Dubai. The art fair, with leather pieces. Leather pieces. Because I only work with leather now. I still work with color, but not a lot. So it encouraged me to go back to leather; I missed leather. Leather is a material, a material a person can really love. A material that is nice to interact with, you end up with beautiful pieces, you use henna, dyes, tea, turmeric, those things give you beauty that’s different than any other artist, it’s unique. I feel it has uniqueness.
Tala: When you say it’s nice to interact with it. I’m curious to eavesdrop on this interaction. [laughing]. What do you say to it? What does it say to you?
Nabil Anani: It tells me many things. [laughing].
Tala: [laughing]. Secrets? secrets?
Nabil Anani: Look, there’s surprises with leather. Ehh.. When you wet it and stretch it on wood.. Of course, every sheep is different; some colors are different from others. It’s strange. Sometimes, I keep the original color, sometimes I add a color lightly. I would add the color with tea or henna, something simple. But it tells me what to do, and what it wants. Therefore..
Tala: [laughing]. It guides you?
Nabil Anani: The result.. If you’re happy with the work and focused on it, the result will have value and be beautiful. Yes. So, that’s when I loved leather, I can’t get a way from it. I returned to it etc… I now experiment with it. It’s not like I stop; no, I come up with new things and add other materials to it. I add ceramics, embroidery, an embroidered piece or something.
Tala: And you started working with leather since the Intifada, before that, you never thought of working with it..
Nabil Anani: No. Not at all, it never crossed my mind at all. Until we met up and decided to each focus on a local material, that’s when leather crossed my mind.
Tala: How nice. But this proves, as you said, that in a time of crisis, you can find new opportunities to innovate new things we never thought of..
Nabil Anani: Exactly, the method changes, the colors change, the shape changes. We used to work on squares, now we work on… The wall is the platform; we put things on it, without angles, it’s free. It’s free, and it becomes something very beautiful.
Tala: Mr. Nabil, what do you think of what they say about boycotting, that it shouldn't be limited to materials used in art, but also the kinds of art that comes from western countries? I mean, I hear this debate a lot about rap, that rap music is imported from the West and we should boycott it as an art genre. Not just to boycott the material. What’s your opinion on this?
Nabil Anani: It’s not necessary to boycott.. I’ll tell you.. all civilizations intermix together. It must. I must benefit from Western art and the West to benefit from my art. These are crossovers that made the whole world like a village, a village. And technology today helps you see art everywhere, any art in the world. It’s good to benefit, it’s not wrong. You know? But to close ourselves off to boycott them, it’s not right. It’s true that a painting, as an idea, is a Western one. The painting, the brush, and the colors a Western ideas. But I now started working with leather, it’s become an Eastern idea you know, a person can make a painting but express that it’s coming from Egypt, from Palestine, from the environment we’re living in. That’s a nice thing.
Tala: I agree with you; economic boycott, I believe, is the main.
Nabil Anani: It’s the main
Tala: Than boycotting ideas.. However, within the context of the occupation, there will always be critics of these things. But just as you said, all civilizations, in the end, mix together.
Nabil Anani: Yes, exactly.
Tala: We can’t separate them from each other.
Nabil Anani: No, no, no. It’s difficult, difficult. and this isn’t just today; all the past eras, all took from one another honestly.
Tala: But at the same time, doesn’t the occupation use that same narrative? As long as all civilizations mix together, it’s fine that I take, for example, falafel or hummus.
Nabil Anani: Exactly, and embroidery, all of it.
Tala: Yes, but this is not okay, of course.
Nabil Anani: This is theft.
Tala: How can we distinguish between cultural overlap and theft?
Nabil Anani: Look, there’s a difference between someone taking something as is and saying, "This is mine.” Israel takes embroidery, falafel and hummus and says this is Israeli. And it's not Israeli. Israel what came from tens of Western countries and Arab countries. Some of them, yes, they know the hummus, but hummus came from Palestine, Jordan, Syria, those areas. They’re stealing it. This theft is clear, it’s obvious, and it has a political purpose at its base. To show they have a civilization. And they say that an embroidery from Beit Lahem is Israeli. Is Beit Lahem in Israel? But they put Israel. And what do people abroad know? What is from Beit Lahem, and what is Israeli? They don’t know.
Tala: True, true of course
Nabil Anani: That's theft. This is theft. Yeah, they're malicious.
Tala: It’s acquisition. This is acquisition
Nabil Anani: Acquisition. Exactly.
Tala: Clear as day. True. Mr. Nabil, most of your work focuses on naturalistic and spatial views in Palestine. Your focus on the land and terrain is noteworthy and distinguished in your work. Especially since in the 50s and 60s, the Palestinian identity was focused more on emotional meanings or symbols like Kuffiyah, embroidery, the rifle. Why did you choose to focus on the land, although it was more popular to focus on these other symbols?
Nabil Anani: It’s.. be cautious; after the occupation started constricting us economically, they found that olives.. or olive trees, is the most important economic tree in Palestine. It’s what feeds people, in plain terms. They always tried during olive picking season to shoot at people, settlers attack them. Smuggle them, confiscate the olives, the oil. People couldn't pick the olives and produce comfortably; that is picked once a year to benefit from it the whole year. This stopped me. so, even me, with olive picking, I went out in the car. I started going in the car to the fields and photograph the people picking olives, singing.. youll find them singing sometimes, amazing popular songs, it was beautiful. I would sometimes go down and help them, pick a bit of olives and go to a second and third and fourth place, and keep photographing. The view of the olives is a mind-blowing view in Palestine. If you look at the trees, you’ll find an eyeline full of olives. Some of the areas west of Ramallah have amazing views. Also, there are olives you’ll find to be 2000 years old, 2500 years old. an olive tree that has been providing for 2500 years. From the time of the Romans. You know, olives interested me a lot, and it has a significance to the land. Olives are rooted in the land, it’s significant to maintaining the land. So I made it a symbol for me. Olives became a symbol alongside the Palestinian woman, which was previously a symbol. Olives became another symbol for me. I started drawing the.. ehh.. natural landscapes from olives, and olive pickers and the villages in view, sometimes the wall shows, but I’d remove it. I wouldn’t show it because I don’t like the wall or the settlements. If there was a settlement on the mountaintop, I’d remove it. I wouldn’t keep it in the natural landscape because it’s an intruder.
Tala: True, true. I noticed in some of your paintings, there’s i fact no view of the occupation, but in some, there is; you captured the wall, the wires and checkpoints. When do you choose to show these landmarks, and when do you decide not to?
Nabil Anani: Look, I draw the wall, not as a natural landscape; I draw it as a subject about the wall. What the wall does to people. Some people are behind the wall; some are in front. Some people are in front of the wall, but their schools are behind it. And the ones behind the wall have land in front of the wall. It’s a whole thing, and there are gates, open and close, open and close. It’s a thing that pressures people a lot, it’s a big pressure on people. And the sick person that needs to be taken to Jerusalem or a city or something, it’s very difficult for them. So I do the wall as a subject, if I draw it, I have drawn it, and I’ve drawn the settlements. But I draw them as subjects, I don't put it in the landscape. The landscapes for me are a research of beauty. A beautiful view, a view that shows you how beautiful Palestine is. how much people look at nature in Palestine, and its birds, animals, trees, and houses. But if you add a settlement to that, it becomes jarring. You know, but for example, I drew a settlement on top and a quiet village in the bottom, a Palestinian village. A village that coexists with nature so beautifully, there’s even grass coming out of its domes with old rocks and the steps paving, the paving. but that one is all new, all concrete, and what do you call it? cement. I want to show the difference between originality and the new things they made that intrude on the environment, intruding on the beauty of Palestinian space.
Tala: Exactly, and do you draw these landscapes and lands for the purpose of documenting it or admiring it or for reminiscing, like if you’re reminiscing on the past? What is your purpose when you're drawing these views?
Nabil Anani: These views.. You know, might have had an element of documentation, I eh.. I don’t intend to document. But I’ll tell you, for example, I drew the village called.. what is it called? I forgot the name of it.. But I drew it and went back after 10 years. I found that all the beautiful houses I drew were all gone. I asked the village people, Where is the house that was here? Where is the house that was there? Where is the house.. They said the occupation arent letting us expand. We demolished the old ones and built new ones instead. Imagine, the beautiful village that was quiet and amazing, was demolished so they can build buildings, buildings in the village. So from that, I document, differently than for example there is a land here and after 2 or 3 years you find a settlement in it. I draw what used to be; it’s a type of documenting without intending to, you know? a type of documenting.
Tala: So, Mourid Al Barghouti was right when he said that you were a historian, but you didn’t know it. [laughing].
Nabil Anani: [laughing]. Without me knowing, yes.
Tala: But you also have a beautiful series that represents Palestine pre-1948 that you did in 2014. and you drew photographic images of Palestinian families. You drew them by hand.
Nabil Anani: Correct.
Tala: This series really piqued my curiosity. Why did you decide to revive these images that exist but with a different medium, let’s say the art medium instead of photography?
Nabil Anani: Correct. I was part of the Institute for Palestinian Studies, there was a book in front of me, I had a look at it. It had pictures of someone from the Raad family, something Raad, he’s Lebanese but lived in Palestine, he’s a photographer. This guy, eh… used to photograph Palestinian families. Photography back then was for people who had money or rich people, so for documenting weddings and marriages, documenting an event, documenting a birth, graduation, stuff like that, you know? So, he used to go to houses and photograph families; they were the most important families in Palestine, the rich ones, honestly, the businessmen..
Tala: Where is he now to see how cheap pictures are now? We take a million pictures a day with out mobiles. [laughing].
Nabil Anani: [laughing]. it used to be expensive; photography was expensive, and you know the cameras back then. Put your head like this and shoot from here and does this, etc.. [laughing]. But this book was in black and white. I borrowed the book from them and later bought one. His name was Khalil Raad. But this piqued my curiosity a lot. I thought, how did these families used to line up like that, wearing that? The clothes back then were beautiful and neat. Eh… So I said I want to do.. I want to draw these people again, to redraw them my way, my style from these pictures. I took these pictures, for example, the one from the Tamari family, the Mansour family, and many other families. Some from Yafa, others from Heifa, some from Al Lod, Al Ramla.. The ones I liked, I drew; I made paintings. But it wouldn't be like the photographed picture; it would be something else. Of course, they were in black and white, I would use color, I would imagine that they would wear these colours. Among them was a picture, a picture of the beauty queen of Palestine in 1942. I drew her after she got her award; that’s how she was photographed. It stayed with me, and then her relatives saw it; they lived in Brazil. They wrote to me and asked if I had the painting. I said Yes, I have it. He said, Do you know that’s our grandmother? I said no, I didn’t know. Yes, he said she died two years ago, and we want to buy the painting. I said, Sure, okay. So, I liked to focus on that we in Palestine, had a very classy civilization in terms of education, business, arts, and culture.
Tala: Umm, this series and the other works you made now that document the old villages, I believe that, as you said, it documents the past and cures the past, but do you think it's important that art documents and addresses the present and the future?
Nabil Anani: Ehh.. The present is an extension of the past, honestly, an extension of the past. And we have to take care of our heritage too, to take care of our heritage. Not just like that, but I say that we must transport our heritage to our current time. To modernize it in terms of adapting it to our current time but not forget our history and civilization and heritage. Those pictures might have been in black and white; I did them in color, as if they’re new paintings. You know? and I gave it life, a life in my own style. My own artistic style, I mean. So, I connect the past with the present and the future. I try to.
Tala: Mr. Nabil, since you lived through 4 decades, since you first started as an artist. How do you view the artistic scene in Palestine changing over the years?
Nabil Anani: Uhh.. it’s changing a lot, really. As I told you in 1975, in the occupied land here, when I first graduated and came here, and did my first exhibition in Jerusalem in 1972. There weren’t many people who had done exhibitions in Palestine, only a very, very few people. Except Ismail Shammout had one, he’d come from abroad, he came did exhibitions in Jerusalem and Nablus in 1952 and 1963, he did one in Cairo, that was opened by Abdel Nasser. Art didn’t have a role, it didn’t exist. It was present pre-1948, but it was closer to the arts, the applied arts, such as fine arts. Although there were sculpture makers and illustrators, they were few, very few. But since the association began and after, the contemporary art movement started step by step. Until it now became.. We probably have now… it started with 15 artists, and now we have around 2000 artists.
Tala: Wow.
Nabil Anani: Yes. Some graduated from local universities, others from European or Arab universities, and all come back to Palestine. Or they’re Palestinians living abroad as well; they’re Palestinians, enriched the movement honestly. Enriched it; They enriched the contemporary art movement. The contemporary art movement in Palestine was almost dead after 1967. Now the contemporary art movement is okay, really good, and we win awards; we have a presence in galleries, in biennales, in museums. At any place we have a presence honestly. Especially the young people, the young people that a lot of them took up more European styles, such as installations, video art, and other things they started using a lot on the basis they are modernising, they’re modernizing.
Tala: And what do you advise them? If someone was going to give you advice or you want to give yourself advice that start working in art at the age of 18? What would you say to yourself and to the artists present today?
Nabil Anani: I would just advise each artist to be true to himself. Every artist should research to research and make something new. Create new ideas. I advise them for every artwork to have substance, have substance not without purpose. to have a specific purpose. I believe art is for society, it’s supposed to interact with society. Don’t go on picnics far, far away from the environment, far from Palestine’s originality, and Palestine’s problems, and Palestine’s worries. Express them, and express them seriously; it’s a must. I don’t enforce it on them, but every person living in an environment is supposed to feel the environment around him and the people around him. So, be honest with yourself.
Tala: And lastly, how do you want to be remembered by people?
Nabil Anani: How will people remember me? with landscape. [laughing]. I wrote a book on landscape called “The Land and I”; I don’t know if you saw it or not.
Tala: I watched the video that you introduced it at the Palestine Museum, and the title really caught my attention. I thought, of course, this title has to be Mr. Nabil’s work; what else would it be other than The Land and I. [laughing].
Nabil Anani: [laughing]. Exactly.
Tala: Umm.. I imagine we can interchange you and the land in words.
Nabil Anani: The land and I are one. [laughing]. Exactly.
Tala: [laughing]. Exactly. Exactly, a synonym.
Nabil Anani: And we’re all going to return to the land. [laughing]. from the land to the land.
Tala: I believe your wish will come true, and people will remember you with the land and remember the land with you.
Nabil Anani: God willing. [laughing]. God willing.
Tala: Thank you, thank you very much for your time and for being with us. I’m very happy I had the opportunity to get to know you.
Nabil Anani: Me too. Thank you.