Mexican art in Palestine as resistance to war

Mexican playwright Ángel Hernández is carrying out an artistic project in the West Bank that reflects on the land, memory and resistance of the Palestinian people.

Ángel Hernández, a Mexican playwright, recently performed a performance in the West Bank community of Beit Jala, based on the verses of Palestinian poets and the unwavering message of resistance of the Palestinian people. This action is part of the Dakhla artistic project, which investigates the relationship of the land as origin and the search for a possible return, an essential concept for Palestinians who have been displaced for decades.

The project, which was originally scheduled for October 7, was postponed due to the risk of publicly exposing an alternative discourse to the Israeli regime. The objective of Dakhla is to gather testimonies from refugees, activists and Palestinians who, despite not being able to return to their country, keep alive the hope and the demand for a free Palestine.

Hernández's work began last year on the Egyptian border in the Sinai region and continued in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, questioning the figure of the land as origin and the possibility of return. In the West Bank, his research focused on the texts of poets who have resisted the Israeli occupation and who, in many cases, have been imprisoned or forced into exile.

Together with the poets Saed Abu-Hijleh and Sami Al-Kilani, Hernández has promoted the magazine Al Fara, a publication that seeks to make visible the voices of these creators, many of them exiled or prisoners, whose work is silenced by the occupation. Poetry, according to Hernández, becomes an act of resistance, an instrument of memory in the face of the genocide in Gaza.

Hernández's artistic project has faced extreme challenges, since carrying out cultural and political activities in Palestine entails a serious risk to the lives of artists. However, the need to continue fighting for justice, freedom and dignity for the Palestinian people remains the driving force behind their work.
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