Rosalind Nashashibi on Palestine, painting and the inner life of resistance.
10 September 2026
In ‘Get Me A Stone’, Rosalind Nashashibi turns to the stone as a symbol of endurance, resistance and belonging. Across painting and film, she considers how the realities of Palestine enter intimate spaces of memory, family and everyday life. Speaking with ART AFRICA, Nashashibi reflects on painting amid violence, her relationship to Palestine and the possibilities of art as a space for complexity, care and resistance.
The title ‘Get Me A Stone’ conjures both a private gesture and a charged political act. What first drew you to the stone as the heart of this exhibition, and how has its significance evolved as you created these works?
Rosalind Nashashibi: Stones stand in for the Palestinians in so many ways, as the weapon of the undefended against the Israeli military, and as a symbol of their resilience and steadfastness in staying on their land in perpetuity, just as stones endure. I started painting a hand holding a stone in relation to another motif on a painting, often a still life of flowers. Let’s say at the start I wanted to make a still life painting, but there was a contradiction at play in making such art historical choices when I was living in a kind of paralysis of anger and fear about the genocide in Gaza and the terrorising of Palestinians in the West Bank, and the cynical reactions in the USA, UK and Europe. I think this was my way of asking: can I be both, acknowledging my desire to paint paintings that are disconnected from violence and oppression, and yet know that this isn’t going to feel like enough, and it’s absolutely necessary for me to find an outlet and a language within my work to talk about the ongoing Nakba.
Your paintings turn away from the urgency of news images, opening up spaces for reflection, memory, and layered symbolism. What do you feel painting can contain that documentary images of conflict leave behind?
I think that painting can speak to a lived experience, whether that’s inner life or external events, in an entirely different way than documentary images of conflict. For me, painting is a direct way of bringing things to the surface that I couldn’t fully articulate in other ways. I think it can speak to viewers with a greater power than documentary images, as it assumes an intimacy with the viewer -I am showing you something that isn’t processed as information to be consumed; I’m bypassing the logical and informational mind and going to another level of thinking by respecting your ability to meet me in an unfinished, unending cycle. But then, inevitably, it won’t speak to everyone, and documentary images can be easier to receive and much more informative.
Film and painting have long been in conversation throughout your practice. In ‘Get Me A Stone’, how do these mediums amplify each other’s voices when speaking of exile, intimacy, and political reality?
The film is exactly about this; the new film in the exhibition is called Occupation of the Inner Life. It’s a very personal work that begins with a young woman asking a tarot reader when she will fall in love and change her current situation. The rest of the film looks mainly at paintings that are in the exhibition, linking the film to the rest of the show that I’ve made that are related to Palestine. There is also a sketch of my father as a young man on his wedding day in London in the 60s and a film of him at home now in the UK. It’s a way to think about what happens to our dreams and hopes under conditions of occupation that are internalised.
The exhibition hints that everyday objects such as beds, clothing, and domestic interiors can serve as vessels for historical memory. How do you approach the ordinary as a meeting point for personal and collective histories?
This is where we meet life through everyday objects. I made the single bed painting during the autumn of 2023, at the beginning of the genocide, when rain was pouring in on the tents of displaced families in Gaza, as a kind of prayer – a dry bed, warm and safe.
Instead of depicting violence head-on, these works seem to weave an emotional language around its aftermath. How do you navigate the ethical tension between bearing witness, representing, and the risk of echoing trauma?
I can always check in on myself. I know what echoing trauma would feel like; at least I think that it would feel like taking something that doesn’t belong to me.
Your work often traces the contours of distance, whether across geography, emotion, or history. As someone navigating both personal and inherited ties to Palestine, how has distance shaped your creative process and sense of belonging?
I am constantly shifting between feeling closer to and further from Palestine, but that is a constant process; in other words, it’s never absent from my thoughts. My father is Palestinian, my mother is Northern Irish, and I was born in London. The inherited ties have led me to the personal ties that I’ve made throughout my life.
Your new film Occupation of The Inner Life weaves together artistic labour and family life, suggesting that political commitment grows from everyday acts of care. How do you see domestic space becoming a site of resistance in your practice?
I agree with this, and I think this question is an answer; we have to hold on to the personal aspect of resistance as well as the obviously important public aspect. In Occupation of the Inner Life, I was thinking about what happens to personally held dreams and hopes, like waiting to be able to fall in love or to expand your own world, when under occupation.
Throughout your career, your work has resisted fixed narratives, drawing viewers into spaces of ambiguity and contemplation. At a time when political stances are expected to be instant and absolute, what role can complexity and poetic openness play in contemporary art?
In some instances, there is a need for a fixed narrative, and the political stance does need to be clear. During the genocide and ongoing occupation and apartheid of Palestine by Israel, the word complexity can be misused to avoid naming the abuses for what they are, but in general, art, whether contemporary or historical, can allow openness and poetry without being vague or avoidant.
This exhibition is on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country, Artium Museoa, until 1 November 2026.
