A mobile art exhibition featuring artworks created by Israeli artists following the October 7 massacre has finished touring key locations around central London.
The exhibition, which popped up in locations such as Trafalgar Square, Parliament Square, Covenant Garden, and Oxford Circus, was curated by the World Zionist Organisation’s Department of Israel and the Holocaust Commemoration in collaboration with volunteers from the 7/10 Human Chain Project.
An art exhibition created by artists based in Israel following the October 7 attack displayed in London (Credit: Amanda Rose/@amandarosephoto)
The artworks, painted by 12 different artists and originally appearing in Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, depict “the collective pain of the Israeli people since the atrocities committed by the terror organisation Hamas and illustrate the many facets of grief and concern around those who were kidnapped and murdered.”
The works include a painting of a ginger-haired baby, believed to be 1-year-old Kfir Bibas, who has spent more than a quarter of his life in captivity, behind bars along with his mother and brother.
Another piece portrays a baby lying inside a bleeding poppy, symbolising the some 40 children who were kidnapped by the terror group Hamas and brought to Gaza.
An art exhibition created by artists based in Israel following the October 7 attack displayed in London (Credit: Amanda Rose/@amandarosephoto)
Orit Eyal-Fibeesh, co-founder of the 7/10 Human Chain, said the installation was “particularly important considering the growing hatred seen in the streets of London over the last few months. Hatred that is often fuelled by bias and lack of awareness.”
She said the works were originally meant to be in 12 locations but was reduced to 5 due to security reasons. Reactions from the public, according to Orit, ranged from “blatantly ignoring them and looking the other way” to a few people “in tears.”
She added that “with the exception of an altercation in Trafalgar Square on Sunday when two individuals pretending to be Lebanese journalists vandalised the exhibition, [we have not witnessed] violence but it’s certainly been tense.”
Israeli ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, visited the installation in Oxford Circus on Tuesday.
Tzipi Hotovely, Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom, visits the mobile art exhibition in London (Credit: Amanda Rose/@amandarosephoto)
Matan Bar Noy, head of WZO in the UK and Europe, said the art was selected “out of hundreds of works created after October 7.”
He added, “I would like to take the opportunity to thank the Jewish community for embracing Israel during this difficult period and as Theodor Herzl said in 1897 at the first Zionist Congress in Basel, ‘we are a people – one people’.”
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