In the face of death, destruction and displacement, beauty plays a key role in Gaza

A miniature group of children in the Gaza Strip sit on a lavender and white blanket around a miniature tray of drinks, singing “Happy Birthday” to a newborn girl. Like children her age all over the world, she wears a sweatshirt with prints of Elsa and Anna, characters from “Frozen”; unlike most children, she is celebrating against the backdrop of a war that the United Nations estimates will last 10 years as of November 2023. has already killed over 4,500 Palestinian children.

It may seem strange, even inappropriate, to celebrate anything in the face of so much destruction – and in the face of what many call it genocide.

However, in research refugees, which I conducted with an interdisciplinary artist and scientist Devora Neumarkwe have discovered that the need to beautify our surroundings is universal and incredibly beneficial – especially in arduous circumstances of loss, displacement and danger.

When people are forced from their homes, finding and creating beauty can be as critical as food, water and shelter.

Gaza today

In the first six weeks of Israel’s war with Hamas 70% of the 2.3 million inhabitants of Gaza had to leave or lost their homes.

More than half are crammed into an emergency shelter, while others are squeezing into the homes of relatives and neighbors. Food is limited and increasingly high-priced. According to the UN, people are receiving only 3% water need every day. Much of the water they have is polluted.

Crops They are dying. We have they do not produce milkPeople get sick. There are solemn shortages infant formula milkbut also anesthesia for these requiring surgeryLack of space and overwhelming stress and fear add a dream to the list of demanding to reach items.

These needs are urgent and indispensable. Without them, people will die. Too many have already done itwhile the conditions for those who live there are appalling. They make it arduous to see anything else.

But endless images of bombs and blood hide life story, color AND Creativity that existed in Gaza. And they hide the beauty that persists despite the war.

Beauty is often seen as a luxury. But it is not. It is the other way around.

Human Impulse

It was pretty characteristic With every human civilizationPhilosopher of art Arthur Dante wrote that beauty, although optional for art, is not an option for life. Neuroscientists have shown that our brains are biologically created for beauty:Neural mechanisms that influence attention and perception have adapted to notice colors, shapes, proportions, and patterns.

We found that refugees around the world, often with circumscribed or no rights, I still put a lot of effort into beautifying their surroundings. Whether they are in shelters or makeshift apartments, they are painting walls, hanging pictures, adding wallpaper and carpeting floors. They are changing plain and seemingly temporary accommodation in personalized spaces – in the likeness of man.

Refugees rearrange the spaces share meals, celebrate holidays and throw parties – welcome friends, hold dances and cross themselves. They burn incense, serve tea in ornate porcelain, and say prayers on ornate mats. These basic acts they carry a deep meaningeven in the midst of challenges.

Urban studies researchers Layla Zibar, Nurhan Abujidi and Bruno de Meulder told the story of Um IbrahimSyrian refugee. When she was pregnant, she and her husband transformed a tent they had been given in a refugee camp in the Kurdistan region of Iraq into a home. They built brick walls. She planned the paint colors and furniture. Around her, neighbors planted potted plants and set up chairs to create porches in front of their transient shelters so they could meet friends. They turned roads into places to celebrate special occasions. They painted a flag at the entrance to the camp.

They created a recent home, but they also made it feel like home.used in Syria.”

Creating hope where there is no hope

Beauty has both practical and transformative values, especially for refugees.

Many refugees experience trauma. All experience loss. Beautification is a way of expressing ourselves, grieving, and healing.

Simple acts – rearranging the furniture in the house, sweeping the floor or deliberately placing an item allows refugees to fill their space own identity and taste. They are a way of coping when you have little control over anything else. Often, once someone is labeled a refugee, all of their other identities are dimmed or disappear.

Devora Neumark’s study of over 200 people who had experienced forced displacement found that beautifying their home helped heal intergenerational trauma caused by forced relocation.

Neumark found that involving children in home improvement efforts had a positive impact on their own coping mechanisms and well-being.

Moreover, if children could imagine their pre-displacement homes through the stories and images they shared with them—what scholar Marianne Hirsch calls “post-memories” – then the actions taken to beautify their current homes could be transformative. They would serve as a bridge between the past and the present and facilitate an ongoing process of healing and preserving identity.

Ultimately, making a space more comfortable, protected and personalized is a material expression of hope for the future.

Cultivating Love and Life

Even before the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas, Palestinians had to face enormous injustice and violence.

Our Palestinian research partner, who must remain anonymous for security reasons, described how life in the refugee camp reminds them of life in prison, but that it is nevertheless a pretty place to live.

Before the outbreak of the last war, there were striking murals AND decorated walls. Intricate Mosaics decorated buildings and paint come alive facades of houses. Neighbors gathered to pray, putting on recent clothes, spraying perfumes, and burning incense to prepare for the rituals. As Christmas approached, Palestinian Christians, along with some Muslims, decorate your homesBoth faiths met to annual tree lighting.

Geographer David Marshall described how youth living in a Palestinian refugee camp used beauty to focus on the positive aspects of their surroundings and dream about a future beyond the camp – and the walls that circumscribed their lives.

In our community-based storytelling project in a Palestinian refugee camp this summer, we witnessed a commitment to beautifying homes with flourishing gardens that have sprung up in very crowded neighborhoods. Neighbors shared how their gardens tranquil them, provide a place to meet friends, and serve as reminders of the fields they once tended.

In her 2021 study, sociology doctoral candidate Corinne Van Emmerick profiled Fatena, a Palestinian woman living in a refugee camp. She had flowers on everything – roof, walls and windowsills. They were high-priced and required “a lot of love.” But Fatena added that they gave her “love in return.”

A form of resistance and resilience

One Guinean refugee interviewed for Neumark’s study said: “As refugees we lose our sense of beautyand when this happens we lose our sense of everything, our sense of life itself.”

If the opposite is true, then clearly beauty cannot be considered something superficial or secondary. One study of Bosnian refugees found that their the ability to see beauty was a sign of improving mental health.

Creating, observing and experiencing beauty enables us to connect with the familiar, serves to preserve cultural identity and strengthens our sense of belonging.

Thanks to this, a little girl in the Gaza Strip will not only have the opportunity to celebrate her birthday, but also make it as pretty as possible.

Contributing to this article is Devora Neumark, an interdisciplinary artist and researcher whose trauma-informed practice explores the connections between home improvement and human experiences of displacement.