760 Smiles Creating illusions, with a sprinkle of magic, can result in wondrous masterpieces of art. Although the Palestinian struggle for freedom is no illusion, Wafa Hourani has mixed these two elements in order to portray this struggle artistically. His latest solo exhibition, The Future of Disappearance , which ended a few days ago, took place in Ramallah, Palestine.
There viewers followed his 15 year artistic journey into the lives of the Palestinians and his clever blend of their struggle with monuments of the real world. In 2013, thirteen sculptures made of rusty metal wires depicted men and women built in life-sized proportions. They stand in the most common posture of Palestinian resistance, in the middle of throwing stones.
One of his latest pieces work on a fictive Darwinian theory, which predicts that Palestinians would grow tall necks in order to adapt to living behind the apartheid wall and to be able to look beyond it. Pieces of photographs were pasted together to build an image of Qalendia Refugee Camp. Mirrors were placed here and there to provide the inhabitants with the illusion of space-Â something they hope for bitterly.
The One and Lonely Mosque is a collection of hundreds of  mosques from all over the world pasted together to form this imagery of one mosque, as a symbol of Muslim unity. For more images of the gallery you can visit this site and delve into Hourani’s world of Palestinian reflection.
