'Grandma's Bird' - a story from Gaza

This week’s blog post is by our brilliant designer in New Zealand - Mark Fenton

I am not very familiar with artists from the Middle East, especially modern ones. In fact my experience is limited to an exhibition at the British Museum in 2006 called ‘Word into Art’, and I loved its modern style. I bought the catalogue and, on checking today, I see there were 3 Palestinian artists showing, two of whom were women.

Forward 15 years and, as I am now living in Central Otago on the South island of New Zealand/Aotearoa, my access to art exhibitions in general is somewhat limited, never mind ones by modern Middle Eastern artists (thank goodness for the internet!)

I have been working as a designer for the Hands Up Project for nearly three years now and I am really enjoying the work I do. Early on, Nick introduced me to Malak’s work which looked amazing. So I was delighted earlier this year to be asked to put together her first children’s book that she had written and illustrated, and excited that we were publishing it as a limited edition book under the Hands Up Project banner.

I’ve often wondered what is the best way to tell the story of the plight of young Palestinians to children around the world. Malak’s book does this perfectly, telling the story of her experiences during the 2014 attack on Gaza, and the beginning of her journey as an internationally renowned artist. She’s had numerous exhibitions around the world and an appearance in Vogue magazine plus the cover of GQ magazine.

The Flower appeared on the cover of GQ magazine Middle East — *The Flower* appeared on the cover of GQ magazine Middle East

Unfortunately for Malak, as we started working on the book, there came another terrifying attack on her country. Added to that, there were the difficulties of working in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, and the fact that Malak herself had caught it and been very sick.

We needed to get her illustrations for the book over to New Zealand. Obviously we had to do this digitally because of the blockade on Gaza which made it impossible to send the illustrations by courier or post.

We found that reliable scanning equipment was hard to come by in Gaza due to the blockade, and anything that exists is often very old, (not to mention bombs and scanners not mixing well).

After one failed attempt at getting good scans, Malak managed to find a shop with a decent quality scanner and one WeTransfer later I had her lovely illustrations on my computer right here in New Zealand.

One of Malak’s many beautiful illustrations, with English and Arabic text.

Nick got busy using his well-honed editing skills and I started on the design and layout. Eventually we had a mock-up of an English version of the book.

At this point we decided it was a good idea to publish Grandma’s Bird bilingually, in English and ‘Street Arabic’.

Enter the Hands Up Project’s very own Haneen Jadalla and a very steep learning curve for me to typeset in Arabic for the first time! Haneen translated the book from the finished English version, during the continuing crisis in Gaza and helped me enormously with the Arabic typesetting.

So after a few late nights on Zoom tweaking Arabic text, crossing the “t’s” and dotting the “i’s”, the artwork for Grandma’s Bird was ready to be sent to printer’s in the south west of the UK.

Last week the books arrived at Nick’s and went onto our Hands Up Project online shop, with some going for distribution to bookshops in London.

The whole process from beginning to end took many months, longer than usual, delayed by an inhuman attack on Malak’s home town and lengthy lockdowns.

Malak was delighted with the book, which made me happy, but the project was above all a Hands Up Project ‘team effort’ running from opposite sides of the world, and I was immensely proud to have worked with such a brilliant artist, not to mention a really amazing editor and a brilliant translator. First and foremost it felt good to help a young Palestinian (Malak is unbelievably still only 23!) to tell a different story from Gaza to children around the world. There are some things that bombs and blockades just can’t stop, such as the strength and resilience of young people in Palestine (including internationally recognised artists like Malak) telling their story, whether through beautiful art or meaningful Remote Theatre plays.