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.
