Curator's note:
The date appearing on the mural is 2010 which is the date the mural was created
The date 2018 listed on this page is the date thie Hyperallegic article was published
The caption "We Can't Life" is an intersectional reference to the last words of George Floyd added some years after the mural was created
Excerpt:
With worldwide refugee numbers surging from year to year, administrative detention, house eviction, transborder expulsion, and mass incarceration have become the scourges of our time. In the case of Palestine, the historical backdrop to these torments is the ongoing population transfer from lands seized for Zionist settlement. Habshe, our friend and comrade, and those like him who are defying the savage rule of military decree cannot be left to stand alone. International attention to their detention makes a huge difference to their treatment. Participating in the more organized forms of action, such as BDS and institutional divestment campaigns, is the least we can do. And if the ferocity of the backlash from Israeli authorities is any guide, they are already achieving a lot.
As art historian David Joselit puts it, “art is a currency” in the global financial, cultural, and media ecosystem. It can be used as a currency of oppression, as in Israel’s artwashing efforts, or it can be a counter-currency of imagination and community across borders when it is deployed by small-scale formations like those mentioned in this article: Aida Youth Center, Decolonize This Place, Dream Defenders, and BDS-driven groups. As MTL puts it, “The arrest of Habshe is an assault on the transformative potential and role of art as a practice of freedom. Israel understands that engaged artists and their ideas are more dangerous than bullets because they penetrate the soft core of its propaganda machine while bypassing state institutions, and they make new social relations on the pathway to liberation.”
Source:
https://hyperallergic.com/421525/mohammed-habshe-yossef-decolonize-this-place/