By Nagham Karaja.

Gaza — The participants in the exhibition presented artworks that expressed their suffering and experiences during the war, as part of a psychosocial support project that extended over ten sessions. The exhibition formed a therapeutic space for expressing pain and holding on to life, featuring paintings and sculptures created with simple tools gathered from around the tents.

On Wednesday evening, November 5, the Educational Guidance Center Association organized an art exhibition titled “Between Loss and Life… Arts from the Rubble.” Through its colors and sculptures, it embodied the collective cry of displaced women who rose from beneath the ruins of war, transforming pain into paintings that speak of survival.

Despite its simplicity, the exhibition resembled a collective elegy for Palestinian women’s pain — a unique form of expression for women worn down by years of siege, displacement, and destruction — who found in art a path toward release and a renewed will to live.

A Means of Expressing Psychological Pressure

Hind Abu Njeila, project coordinator and founder of the exhibition, said the initiative was the result of ten sessions of psychological and emotional support organized by the association for displaced women and children in shelters. She explained that the idea of transforming psychosocial support sessions into an artistic product wasn’t easy but emerged in response to women’s need for a nontraditional outlet to express the immense psychological pressure they’ve endured since the outbreak of the war on October 7, 2023.

“I realized after the first few sessions,” she said, “that women didn’t just need comforting words — they needed spaces to unleash their repressed energy. I found that art was the most beautiful path toward healing, because the brush can say what words cannot.”

Most of the participating women, she explained, had lost husbands, children, or homes. They expressed their harsh experiences by painting on fabric and cardboard, using simple materials collected from around the tents — charcoal, leftover school paints, and recycled cardboard. “The surprise,” she added, “was that despite their simplicity, these works carried a painful honesty and profound humanity that no seminar or discussion could ever convey.”

She emphasized that art in such circumstances is not a luxury but a therapeutic necessity. “Most of the women suffer from post-traumatic stress due to the loss of loved ones and the repeated scenes of bombing and displacement,” she said. “What women in Gaza endure isn’t mere psychological stress — it’s existential exhaustion. The woman here isn’t just facing wars; she’s struggling every day to prove to herself that she can still survive.”

The association’s goal, she explained, was to build an interactive experience between the women, the audience, and visitors — allowing them to feel that their voices are heard and that their suffering is being transformed into beauty that touches the heart rather than silence that swallows their stories.

Regarding the title, Abu Njeila said that “Between Loss and Life” reflects the delicate space women live in every day — between grief and the instinct to survive. “That space is what we tried to capture artistically,” she noted. “These women did not choose war, but they chose life in spite of it.”

The exhibition brought together women of all ages — from grandmothers to young girls — who collaborated on works that combined painting, sewing, and handicraft. “The women would sit in small circles, sharing their stories as they worked,” Abu Njeila said. “Tears would turn into talk, talk into laughter, and laughter into art.”

As for the results, she said, “The psychological effects were astonishing. After each art therapy session, we noticed improvements in the women’s behavior and a gradual return of emotional stability. These sessions don’t erase pain — but they tame it.”

The association, she added, plans to continue in this direction by organizing traveling exhibitions in shelters and affected areas, giving more women the chance to express themselves through art. “Art,” she concluded, “can be a form of psychological justice in the absence of human justice.”

A Temporary Space of Survival

Among the participants was Naima Jundiya, a forty-year-old displaced woman who lost her home and all she owned during the war. She stood before her painting of a large hand, from whose fingers sprouted words like fear, loss, loneliness, waiting, and patience.
“I found myself drawing my hand,” she said pensively, “because I felt I had nothing left but myself. On each finger I wrote one of my problems — because there was no one left to confide in or listen to what I carried inside.”

She described art as a temporary refuge from the harsh reality of life in a tent. “The suffering of women can’t be described, no matter how much we talk about it,” she said. “We’ve lived through siege, displacement, and hunger. Even when the ceasefire was announced, we couldn’t feel joy — because what we lost was greater than any temporary peace. Sadly, life in tents seems to be our fate — perhaps for the rest of our lives. But activities like this one give us a small light amid all this darkness.”

Naima believes that art is not reserved for artists but is a right for anyone who has tasted pain. Her simple painting — which drew the attention of many visitors — was, to her, “a mirror of an entire life of heartbreak and hope.”
“Painting made me see myself again,” she said, “not as a woman who lost everything, but as a human being capable of expressing what I’ve been unable to say for months.”

“We Still Live — and Can Create Beauty from Nothing”

Amani Helles, a woman in her thirties who lost her home and several family members during the war, joined the sessions for the first time after much hesitation. “I thought these sessions would be a waste of time,” she said, “but I discovered they helped me recover a part of myself that I’d lost under the rubble.”

She described the exhibition as the beginning of regaining self-confidence.
“Today, I’m no longer the woman chasing bread lines, water gallons, and firewood between ruins,” she said. “I’m here to tell the world that we still live — and we can create beauty out of nothing.”

She affirmed that art, even in its simplest forms, can be an effective treatment for psychological collapse among displaced women. “These paintings weren’t just colors,” she said. “They were our suspended prayers. Every brushstroke bled with pain — but at the same time, it was healing a deep inner wound.”

“When I painted our destroyed home,” Amani added, “I didn’t cry as I used to every day. I felt like I was putting all my pain onto the paper — and for a moment, it left me.”

The exhibition displayed dozens of modest paintings and small handmade sculptures by women and children — portraits of children sleeping on the ground, symbolic depictions of lost loved ones, and nostalgic memories of destroyed homes. Despite the simplicity of the materials, the audience stood captivated before each piece, as if every one of them carried a full story from the heart of pain.

At the end of the event, the women gathered around their artworks, pride glowing on their faces. They felt they had created something new — for themselves and for others. Some visitors interested in women’s issues left messages of gratitude, saying:
“When art rises from the rubble, it is truer than any slogan.