Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Targeted: 100+ Kites: A Benefit for Gaza

North View Gallery

The North View Gallery invites you back to the gallery for our fall exhibition, Targeted: 100+ Kites: A Benefit for Gaza, an installation by artist Mona Huneidi.

Inspired by the poem “If I Must Die” by the Palestinian academic and writer Refaat Alareer, Targeted: 100+ Kites commemorates the journalists who have been killed or gone missing in Gaza since the war began.  The installation includes more than one 100 handmade kites, as well as original projections and sound, created by a team of Portland artists led by Huneidi.  

“When the idea for this installation began to develop in late 2023,” says Huneidi, “more than forty journalists had been killed. I titled the piece knowing the toll would continue to grow.” As of August 23, 2024, the Committee to Protect Journalists has investigated the killing of at least 116 journalists and media workers in Gaza, making it the deadliest period for journalists since the organization began documenting such deaths in 1992.

In this time of immense devastation, the installation provides a space for people to gather in solidarity.  “Working with artists and other collaborators on this project, I have been reminded of the power of community and creativity,” Huneidi notes. “We must continue to find each other, in our full humanity, and to refuse to let what is happening be ignored.”

The installation was created as a fundraiser for the Committee to Protect Journalists (https://cpj.org), which works globally wherever media workers are attacked or endangered, and for Anera (https://www.anera.org/) and the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (https://www.pcrf.net/), which provide food, medical care, education, and other necessities for people in Gaza.  Although entry to the installation is free, visitors may make donations online to these organizations via their respective websites.

Please join us for an opening reception with the artist on Saturday September 14, 2024 from 5:00-8:00 pm.

Artist Statement:

The impetus for this installation came as a response to what I felt is an unraveling of humanity. By the end of 2023, I  watched in horror what world leaders seemed to watch passively. I was mistaken, they were not passive. I just did not understand the meaning behind their language. What I do understand is that what defines us is not how we behave in times of comfort or peace. Rather, it is how we behave under duress and in times of war.

I believe in the power of words, in the power of images, and in the power of information. This is how we record and recount our experiences, how we tell our story, and finally how we resist. I am not alone in this belief.  Foreign journalists are being kept out of Gaza by the Israeli government.  Journalists who live in Gaza are being killed, as are their families. This unrelenting targeting is proof that there is a concerted attempt to suppress information. Those who wish to control and censor a narrative are trying to exterminate those who wish to document the truth.

As early as October 10, 2023,, the bombing of buildings where journalists work seemed random, but it marked a beginning. What started with the killing of three journalists and others wounded grew to a toll of more than forty journalists by mid-November. In December 2023, when the idea for this installation began to develop, I knew the number would continue to climb. I titled the piece with this in mind.

By the time the installation was first exhibited, in April 2024 at Performance Works NW in Portland, Oregon, the count exceeded 100 journalists killed, with more reported missing, arrested or injured. The count continues to climb, as calls for a permanent ceasefire go unheeded. I wish to honor the dedication of these journalists and their work. They paid with their lives, but they will not be forgotten.

Throughout this project, working with artists and other collaborators to create the soundscape, the projection, the kites, and the installation, I have been reminded of the power of community and creativity. We must continue to find each other, in our full humanity, and to refuse to let what is happening be ignored.

The kites are inspired by the poem, “If I Must Die,” by academic and poet Refaat Alareer:

If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze–
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself–
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale

Refaat Alareer wrote the poem in 2011. As the attacks on Gaza began in autumn of 2023, and after receiving multiple death threats, he widely shared the poem online. On December 6, 2023, he was murdered by an Israeli airstrike along with his brother, sister and their children.

Mona Huneidi

 

About the Artist:

Mona Huneidi is a filmmaker/animator who works primarily in stop-motion animation. She aims her lens at the opaque, that which takes place in secret, behind curtains or in the shadows. Her body of work revolves around the minutiae of human behavior, obsessive habits, arduous matters of the heart, betrayal, and inexplicable phenomenon. Her animations reflect the belief that everyday articles are curious when taken out of context and that still objects, no matter how pedestrian, are magical in motion.  She uses wood, glass, transparencies, wire weaves, paper dolls, found objects, doll parts, shadows, and texture to create the space and the characters that inhabit it.  Her work has been screened locally at Performance Works Northwest, Imago Theatre, and PCC’s Art Beat as well as internationally at Festival Du Cinema Bruxelles, Festival De Cine Internacional De Barcelona, and the Cannes Short Film Corner.  She is currently taking a break from filmmaking to continue work on Targeted / 100+ Kites to honor Gazan journalists and the people of Gaza as a whole.  This is her first installation. Huneidi was born in Kuwait and educated in Lebanon and Kuwait, and she holds a BFA in filmmaking from San Francisco Art Institute.  Her Palestinian parents and grandparents were displaced from their hometown during the Nakba.