[singlepic id=273 w=320 h=240 float=right]The Betsalel Academy has celebrated graduating its students for the year 2010 last week. The ceremony included a show of the artistic and fashion works that the students made. An interesting phenonmenon that I saw in the ceremony was the Palestinian Arabs success and creativity in making fashion and artistic works that represented their history and feelings.

An Arab Student Nada Nafar made a seam garment that looked different and interesting. Once Nada was asked about her project she replied by saying: The cloth embraces the Human body, the house embraces the Human and the space embraces the house, the human, the culture and the identity. We asked Nada about her project and the reason she chose this exact design. Nada replied: The clothing series are based on a research that I made about my hometown that I was born and grown in it; Lod. For my hometown there is a history filled with refugees, people that were expelled, war, an occupation of lands and houses, permanent residents, buildings and a History. In one territory there is a collection of different populations that create the city. Nada also said that she is a daughter to a family of refugees that were expelled from Jaffa and came to live in Al-Lod.[singlepic id=274 w=320 h=240 float=right]

Despite her family’s history of suffering, Nada insists that she wants to create works that would give hope for a better future. Nada continued to talk about the way she chose the colours and design of her cloth project that looked different and expressing. She showed a great affection and love for her hometown Lod that is suffering from different economical and community problems. The uniqueness in what Nada introduced was her desire to create a hope that one day the situation would be better and that the sons and daughters of those who suffered from the Palestinian people in the past would at least get a better life.

A life that gives them the right to express themselves, enjoy their identity and feel the liberty which they are forbidden from having until today. Nada’s project is considered a precedent since a few made such amazing projects that express the history and life of the Palestinians that have been under occupation since more than sixty years.

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Ziad Khalil Abu Zayyad

A Palestinian-Arab living in East Jerusalem, Ziad graduated from College Des Freres in Jerusalem in 2003. Ziad finished his major in International Relations and English Literature from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Ziad is a former President of the Watan student movement at the university. He is interested in Middle Eastern political issues and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Founder of the Middle East Post and MEL (Middle East Future Leadership Network), he represents Palestinian youth at several international conferences.

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