Nada Rajab. I Tried To Survive. Art under the rubble

I Tried To Survive - Pencil and Ink artwork By Palestinian Artist Nada Rajab 

I tried to survive while my heart bled in silence. I carried the names of the lost beneath my tongue, wrapped grief around me like a second skin, and learned to stand while the world fell inward.

The roses grew red where words failed, the olive leaves kept reaching for light, and still I rose with Palestine inside me. They mistook my silence for surrender, but I was listening for the footsteps of return. I was gathering every broken thing into memory, every mother, every child, every unfinished prayer.

My heart did not stop bleeding, it simply learned how to beat through the wound, rooted like an olive tree beneath the fire.

In 2025, Nada started an Art From Under The Rubble initiative. She wrote about it:

“How did I transform pain into art and rubble into a message within the Gaza Strip? 🪄

In the heart of a city that has taken on a permanent shade of grey after two years of genocide, I made the decision to recreate color from the rubble to revive our emotions, our identity, and our city.

I began implementing a series of artistic activities under the “Art from Rubble” project, supported by

"The Hands Up Project" . Our work spans various forms of art including painting on cardboard boxes originally collected for firewood, sculpting and modeling with clay extracted from deep craters left by Israeli airstrikes during the latest war, and shaping figures directly from the rubble itself.

Our activities also include performing arts such as theatre, as well as creative writing and storytelling, which add a valuable educational dimension. Together with my talented students, we bring life back to destroyed spaces.

Now, amid the destruction, I continue to work turning pain into art, and rubble into a message within the walls of Gaza.”

Nada Rajab

Palestinian Visual Artist and Engineer, based in Gaza City. Born on October 18, 2003.