Archiving Gaza in the Present

About the Book

Conflict does more than destroy physical spaces. It extinguishes lives, erases histories and disrupts the collective memory of entire communities. In Gaza, where genocide has wrought catastrophic loss, the destruction of heritage adds another dimension of devastation. Yet amid the rubble, acts of archiving, art-making and storytelling persist.

Archiving Gaza in the Present brings together voices from Palestine and beyond to document the cultural erasure and to explore how creative and archival practices resist it. Contributions from curators, architects, artists, journalists, lawyers and scholars capture Gaza’s once-vibrant cultural life – historic buildings, art centres, universities and museums that existed before October 2023 – now turned to rubble.

Featuring rich visual material – from fragmented WhatsApp testimonies to forensic documentation – and including artworks, maps and photographs, Archiving Gaza in the Present is both a living archive and a call to action. It is a vital resource for understanding Gaza’s cultural survival amid destruction.

In partnership with the Arab British Centre.

About the Contributors

Dina Matar is professor of Global Communication and Arab Media at SOAS, University of London and former Chair of Centre for Palestine Studies. She is editor, with Helga Tawil-Souri, of Producing Palestine: the Creative Production of Palestine through Contemporary Media (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024), Gaza as Metaphor (Hurst, 2016), and author of What it Means to be Palestinian: Stories of Palestinian Peoplehood (I.B. Tauris, 2010).

Venetia Porter is former senior curator for Islamic and Contemporary Middle East art at the British Museum where she is now honorary research fellow. Her exhibitions include Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam (2012) and she was the lead curator for the Albukhary Foundation gallery of the Islamic World (opened 2018).  She is a trustee of the Arab British Centre and her most recent publication is Artists Making Books: Poetry to Politics (British Museum Press 2023).

Reviews

‘A truly incredible collection touching on creative work ranging from museums, architecture and poetry to graffiti, digital media and painting. A testament to Palestinians’ will to live and create even under unimaginably violent conditions.’
Helga Tawil-Souri, Associate Professor, Department of Media, Culture and Communication the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, NYU

‘Archiving Gaza in the Present will no doubt become a key reference point for a fundamental moral, political, historical and legal reckoning with what we have lost and are losing in Gaza today.’
Anthony Downey, Professor of Visual Culture in the Middle East, Birmingham City University

‘This significant collection of writings allows us a glimpse at the devastating impact on the cultural landscape of Gaza during Israel's genocidal war, and the crucial need to do all we can to support and champion Palestinian voices.’
Daniel Gorman, Director, English PEN