From the Autumn of 2019 through the Autumn of 2023, Rozner has worked as Project Coordinator & Artist with the Palestinian-centered grassroots community art project, I Witness Silwan — a partnership between the Madaa Creative Center and the Art Forces. I Witness Silwan utilizes art to raise voices of the oppressed by creating large-scale murals of eyes that stare out from the neighborhoods of Silwan, Occupied East Jerusalem toward the Old City — a center of culture and spirituality for many, but at the same time a highly militarized area in which the Israeli Occupation Forces attempt to hide their ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in plain sight. The eyes murals interrogate those who visit the tourist and archeological centers in and around the Old City to open their eyes and look back at what they’re seeing — to ask questions beyond the narratives they’re told by Israeli tourist, settler and media agencies. The project seeks to elevate the history and stories of Palestinians in their ancestral homelands as they face forced expulsions by the aforementioned agencies, Jerusalem Municipality and the IOF.
I Witness Silwan utilizes community-created visual art to transmit powerful messages that connect the struggle for Palestinian liberation to the greater global movement of seeking justice for all oppressed people. These murals are envisioned together by the neighborhoods’ residents and the team of I Witness Silwan. Murals are installed on homes that have demolition or eviction orders, that can be seen strategically from afar, and that engage any local — from youth to elders — to co-create what their neighborhoods look like through art in spite of occupation. I Witness Silwan amplifies the power of art to resist the forces of oppression and demand rights for Palestinians through visual language as an alternative method of approaching viewers from all walks of life with the aim that others will hear the call to reveal injustice and stand in solidarity.
“Salah,” meaning ‘prayer’ in Arabic. Home of Umm Nasser & her family who face forcible removal from their home for generations. Located in the neighborhood of Batn al-Hawa of the Silwan area of Occupied Jerusalem. Summer 2022. Film photograph by L Rosner.
Umm Nasser, of great respect, painting her home. Summer 2020. Film photograph by L Rosner.
Girl painting a flower on the home of Umm Nasser. Summer 2020. Film photograph by L Rosner.
Eyes of Hamad Moussa. A Palestinian farmer from Dayr el-Assad, a village outside of the city of Akka, who experienced the Nakba (meaning ‘catastrophe’ in Arabic) of 1948. The image utilized for this mural is by Palestinian-American photographer John Halaka, from his project ‘Faces from Erased Places.’ This is mural is located in the Batn al-Hawa neighborhood of Silwan, Occupied Jerusalem. Fall 2019. Film photograph by L Rosner.
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