Events

Event details

What: Sound and spatial installation honoring the martyrs of Gaza with an opening gathering and poetry reading
Opening Event: Dec 8, 2023 at 6–8pm, Poetry Reading at 7pm
Viewing Hours: Noon–6pm every Thursday, Friday, & Saturday through Dec 30: Dec 7–9, Dec 14–16, Dec 21–23; Dec 28–30. Additional programming to be announced.
Where: Public Functionary #247, 1500 Jackson Street NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413
Accessibility: The gallery is ADA accessible

Since the beginning of the genocidal war on Gaza, more than 20,000 Palestinians, including over 8,000 children, have been killed by the Israeli military. 

After the Palestinian Ministry of Health released a list containing a fraction of the martyrs’ names and ages on October 26, 2023, a group of University of Minnesota faculty and students along with the Students for Justice in Palestine decided to honor Gaza’s martyrs by naming them in a public action. Despite the mainstream media’s portrayal of Palestinians as massacred bodies and numbers, this project conveys that they are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandparents, spouses, cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends. Some of them are relatives of the Palestinian community in the Twin Cities.

Our community mobilized to purchase 10,000 stake flags (the number of martyrs by early November) in the colors of the Palestinian flag. A number of us, along with SWANA artists and Mizna staff, transcribed hundreds of names each, as we grieved entire bloodlines killed under Israeli bombs.  

On November 7, we planted the flags with names of the martyrs, and blank ones in the memory of those whose names have not yet been released, in the shape of the Palestinian flag at the University of Minnesota. Hundreds of students and faculty joined us as we set each flag into the Northrop Mall lawn and read the names of the martyrs. It took two days (around twelve hours) to read all the names collectively. The flags were installed a second time the following weekend outside the Minnesota State Capitol during a rally in solidarity with Palestine.

As we continue to bear witness to the genocide in Gaza and honor the struggle for Palestinian liberation, this installation will be presented for the third time at Public Functionary. In lieu of a live reading of the names, a pre-recorded eleven-hour-long audio piece produced by the volunteers at the Let Gaza Live Audio Memorial will play in the space.

A gathering to mark the opening of this installation and to mourn the loss of life in Gaza will take place on December 8, 2023 at 6pm. This event will feature a reading beginning at 7pm from local poets Yara Omer, Willie Nour, Sagirah Shahid, Nikki Lewis, Meg Amad, Muna Abdulahi, Aziz Bisanz, Su Hwang, Chaun Webster, Sun Yung Shin, and Sana Wazwaz in solidarity with Palestine. 

The installation will be available for viewing through the end of December 2023. 

This installation is presented by Mizna, UMN Students for Justice in Palestine, UMN Palestine Studies Working Group (soon to become Faculty for Justice in Palestine), and Public Functionary. Thank you to the Let Gaza Live Audio Memorial for providing their sound recording. This work is supported by the Headwaters Foundation.

Find more events and resources at our page, Toward a Free Palestine