More than a year into the destruction of Gaza, a group of publishers – horrified by the scale of devastation and the silence that followed – came together to consider how Palestinian creatives might be better heard.
Long committed to supporting communities facing ecological and political crises, Madrid-based TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary found a way, with its partners, to help amplify Palestinian voices through culture.
Co-published by TBA21, Silver Press and the87Press in October, and edited by Skye Arundhati Thomas, Edwin Nasr and Gloria Habsburg, Palestine Is Everywhere is a contributor-led anthology of testimony-led poetry, essays and artworks from Gaza and beyond.
Bringing together first-hand accounts alongside academic essays, poems, protest chronicles and letters from prison, the book is a call to bear witness. As the genocide unfolded, Palestinian writers, artists and photographers continued to document, translate and transmit fragments of their lives through blackouts, bombardment and grief.
“Their commitment demanded a response,” says Rosa Ferre, co-director of TBA21. “We began discussing this project in December 2023, at a moment when public discourse itself seemed to collapse. By April 2024, our intentions had crystallised, and we invited Skye Arundhati Thomas to lead the book’s development. We shared a conviction: that culture must respond to crisis not with neutrality, but with solidarity – especially with those most at risk of being silenced.”
Assembling the book, Ferre explains, was a formidable challenge. Fragile communications, contributors spread across continents and the emotional strain of the war on everyone involved made the collaboration difficult to sustain.
“And still, through that fragility, something astonishing took shape: a network grounded in trust, care and friendship,” she says. “Every contribution felt like an act of defiance – a declaration that life, language and imagination endure even when everything conspires to extinguish them.”
Among the contributors is Adam Rouhana, a Palestinian-American photographer based between Jerusalem and London, who presents a photo essay titled Blood Memories – a visual testimony of everyday life under occupation. His work explores questions of identity, surveillance and belonging, both individual and collective.
Rouhana began compiling the series in 2022; all but one image – a photograph of a priest – were taken that year. “The title draws on a concept coined by Kiowa author N Scott Momaday, in which memories are passed down from generation to generation, shaping collective narrative and consciousness,” he says. Rendered in black and white, the photographs capture ordinary moments that speak with quiet force.
“Speak to Gaza, not just about Gaza,” contributor and journalist Mohammed Mhawish told the editors in a statement. “Written despite blockades, blackouts and bombardment, the texts carry the full, unconsoling weight of bearing witness – each sentence having circumvented and outlasted censorship, destruction and erasure.”
With nearly 30 contributors spanning journalism, editorial work, art history, academia, translation, visual art and design, Palestine Is Everywhere brings together a wide-ranging group of creatives telling the same story through different forms.
The book’s title page features I'm Still Alive, an illustration by Palestinian artist Maisara Baroud. London-based writer Mira Mattar contributes Four Poems, exploring grief and anger through tightly composed verse. Writer and educator Nahil Mohana, who has remained in her hometown of Gaza city throughout the genocide, offers excerpts from a diary that has also appeared in international publications. Photographer Ahmad Zaghmouri documents the remains of Palestinian villages and agricultural terraces, damaged by illegal Israeli settlement, in a reflective photographic series.
In 2026, the project will expand further with the launch of a dedicated digital platform, hosting new commissioned visual, audio and multimedia works on a monthly basis.
“A book can hold testimony, but a digital platform can safeguard its future,” says Ferre. “It extends the life of the project beyond the printed page, allowing new commissions, new voices and new urgencies to enter a living archive.
“In the midst of ongoing devastation, a static record is not enough,” she adds. “The platform gives us a way to continue supporting artists and writers inside Palestine and across the diaspora with a consistency that print alone cannot sustain.”
All royalties from Palestine Is Everywhere will be donated to Medical Aid for Palestinians and The Arab Group for the Protection of Nature.
“In a world where narratives are weaponised and silence is engineered,” Ferre says, “this project ensures these voices are not forgotten, misrepresented or buried under the rubble of public amnesia. It keeps open a space for attention that resists erasure.”
