We’re really excited to announce Palestinian artist and activist Taqi Spateen arrives in the UK as part of a tour with Bethlehem Cultural Festival.
Taqi is working with artists and communities in Leeds (with East Street Arts and the Leeds Palestine Film Festival), Glasgow (with Ciaran Glöbel), Bristol (with Upfest), Stroud (with Stroud Valleys Artspace (SVA) and the Picturedrome Theatre, Gloucester) and London to create five large-scale murals.
Graffiti art is a major cultural force in Palestine, and we’re excited to be part of these collaborations and to provide a residency space.
Taqi Spateen is a multi-talented Palestinian artist and Fine Arts graduate of the International Academy of Art (IAA) in Ramallah, Palestine.
Informal Talk with Taqi Spateen in Stroud: Sunday 2nd June 6pm at Brunel Goods Shed, Station Approach, Stroud GL5 3AP
Meet and Greet with Taqi Spateen in Gloucester : Wednesday 5th June 6pm at Picturedrome at Picturedrome, Barton St, Gloucester.
We hope to release more details soon, but estimate that Taqi’s residency in Stroud/Gloucester will last until Wednesday 5th June 2024 with a talk at Picturedrome in Gloucester at the end of the residency.
Funded by the British Council and Creative Scotland.
Graffiti art is a major cultural force in Palestine. In August 2005, UK street artist Banksy and his team painted seven large murals on a section of the 440-miles-long West Bank Wall, also referred to as the Separation Wall. Since then, the wall has gone on to become a hotspot for the graffiti scene, a major tourist attraction and a powerful work of art in its own right.
The Artists
Taqi Spateen has created many murals on the wall including The Boy with the Goldfish Bowl, showing a child with what is left after the destruction of his childhood home, a series of portraits of George Floyd, and his collaboration with the brand The North Face, Walls Are Meant For Climbing. Now creating and exhibiting internationally, Spateen draws inspiration from the Palestinian countryside, particularly the olive tree, one of the most famous of all Palestinian symbols. His more recent paintings also include depictions of mass urbanisation and colonial settlements on his precious homeland.
Glasgow-based Ciaran Glöbel, with fellow artist Conzo Throb, was behind the fake Banksy - a rat wearing a union jack bowler and banging a drum emblazoned with the words “God Save the King” - which appeared in the city last June. The stunt was intended to highlight the hypocrisy surrounding street art and graffiti, where some artworks are praised and valued and others are dismissed and removed. Glöbel was the subject of a 2018 BBC Arts short film, Hands On, about his work as an artist, graphic designer and signwriter.
Australian-born and London-based, Jimmy C (James Cochran) was a vital part of the development of the graffiti scene in Adelaide, known for his aerosol art murals and his work in city and regional communities across Australia. His urban realist narrative paintings often depict marginalised humans in the context of the urban environment.
Bethlehem Cultural Festival was set up in 2020 to put the artists, arts and culture of Palestine and Bethlehem centre stage.
The Festival’s creative director, Melissa Scott, says: "We are excited to be able to facilitate collaborations between Taqi and UK-based street artists. We hope the resulting murals will be a lasting legacy demonstrating our hopes to eliminate the walls and borders that divide us as humans. We continue to be devastated by the violence inflicted on all our friends, artists and cultural practitioners in Palestine.”
Watch this film
Taqi Spateen - Video by @UntoldPalestine - a unique independent platform that tells digital stories about the lives of Palestinians that are not told by the media.
"Meet Taqi Spateen, the artist who painted George Floyd and Iyad Hallaq on the illegal separation wall in the West Bank - a story shared by @untoldpalestine in an effort to combat the narrative of violence surrounding Palestinian stories.”
In Leeds - May 2024
To be or not to be (2024) © Wes Foster
The artwork, To be or not to be (2024), features the artist’s two children alongside a larger than life daisy – a flower symbolic of Palestinian springtime. By giving his children ‘permanent residency’ in Leeds, Taqi’s mural highlights the lack of freedom of movement for many, including his own family, impacted by the ongoing Palestinian and Israeli conflict.