Normalized Trauma, Traumatized Normalcy – The Palestine Exhibition “Kalanlar Filistin” in Istanbul

On March 30, 2026, the solidarity exhibition "Kalanlar Filistin" [What remains of Palestine] closes its doors after three months in Istanbul Harbiye. Milena Rampoldi of ProMosaik visited this exhibition for us and reports on her impressions. 

Milena Rampoldi, March 14, 2026

At first glance, this exhibition organized by the Turkish cultural association Kalyon Kültür would be seen as the narrative of the Zionist destruction of Palestinian life (family, school, childhood, culture) and thus as a material presentation of the Zionist genocide. However, what really counts here, if you are in the middle of the exhibition and experience it, is not the brutal destruction that you perceive on the surface, but what is “left” and lives on after the destruction.

It is about everything that Zionism cannot hit, namely the soul, resistance and humanity. In fact, the title of this innovative exhibition, which somehow turns classical museum pedagogy and its dialectical paradigms completely upside down, could be translated as “What remains of Palestine”.

What remains and stays after the bombings and airstrikes of the Israeli military, the symbol and essence of new colonialism in the Middle East, are human dignity, the spirit of resistance and the Palestinian humanity of an oppressed people, but who are by no means the victims of this destruction. 

The visitor enters into an empathic dialogue with the war reality of Palestine, which is “recreated” in the exhibition premises. The visitor loses all distance, his empathy is the result of the abolition of any dialectic between his safe and stable existence in Istanbul-Harbiye and the genocide in Gaza. However, the visitor is not there to perceive Palestine as an object in the sense of Edward Said and to pity it as a do-gooder, but to appear as a witness for Palestine and to leave the exhibition as a witness.

Like the testimony in the Qur'an, the testimony of a historical event is not a right, but an obligation. And this commitment leads to ethical responsibility. The visitor interacts with the destruction and does not get out of his responsibility number. Since the obligation to stand up for Palestine is not a choice of a sunny day in Harbiye, but the ethical obligation of a life as an ethical thinking, witnessing and acting person. As it says so beautifully on the website of the exhibition: “This exhibition is not a visit; it is an attitude.”

What remains after the Zionist destruction is the ontological “remnant,” the remnant that opposes any ontological brutality.

“Destruction is not a moment here, but a structure that has gained continuity; trauma is the new form of everyday life.”

Trauma gets normalized in Palestine. Palestinian life in Gaza is the remnant of this traumatized normality. However, the trauma is now also an everyday aspect of the visitor, who has turned into a responsible confidant/witness for life.

“The visitors are not invited to emotional relief, but to an ethical debate. Here, not compassion, but testimony is expected. Because testimony results in responsibility.”

It is not about the catharsis of the visitor, as it is the case in a Greek tragedy, but about the inconvenient knowledge of the Zionist genocide in Gaza.

What remains are silent people and silent objects that stay immovably in their place as witnesses of destruction. This can be seen in particular in the rooms where the kitchen, the school class and the Palestinian home are shown after the Israeli bombings. The material remains, a piece of wall, an empty pot, a school desk, a blackboard..., and these objects are silent. 

The first victims are always the children. For the Zionist genocide is above all a child genocide. Therefore, the figure of Handala is also central in this exhibition.

Handala is the famous cartoon character of the Palestinian artist Naji al-Ali from 1969, which has very strong autobiographical traits. The murdered children of Gaza and the children who, like the cartoonist himself, became surviving refugees are the symbol of testimony that remains and defies brutal destruction.

“What can be seen here is not a loss, but irretrievable time.”

“The barbed wire at the centre of the installation transforms the border from a geographical line into a permanent experience imprinted in body and memory. This installation is not conceived as an aesthetic composition; it wants the visitor to immediately feel the interruption between today and yesterday and its ethical significance. The work calls for observation, not pity.”

The trauma is, as mentioned, the normality. War is continuity and the labyrinth of the exhibition is a constant reality. The visitor walks into the labyrinth. He remains there voluntarily and experiences the darkness of imprisonment acoustically as a permanent experience. The children teach the visitor what is war - acoustically and visually. The cries of the children are imprinted in the mind and soul of the witness spectator. At the same time, the guided tour of the exhibition illuminates the various movements on the grey walls of the labyrinth. Violence and brutality become part of everyday life and are no exceptions. You do not escape from this labyrinth, you stay, listen and painfully learn the resistance, which then remains as an echo once you left the exhibition. 

When the bombs are asleep, we too can sleep

Is there chocolate in paradise?

Allah is with us

“What is happening here is not a deviation, but order itself.”

The visitor can't get out of the situation. This is not an escape room, this is his testimony of Palestine, the Zionist colony of the Middle East of children like Handala.

The other room, where the names of the martyrs are read, performs the same function. Here, too, the witness does not flee, but remains. The dialectic between testimony and witness is abolished. We are in the post-dialectical space of the Palestinians' response to the Zionist State and its outdated dialectics.