Ghanem Al-Den, Dry Shave, 2025
Ghanem Al-Den, Dry Shave, 2025
This art project is not only a metaphor for pain, but a living testimony to the economic humiliation and symbolic violence to which the artist is subjected in the shadow of war, poverty, and neglect. It also carries a message and a vision that the artist is not a burden, the artist is not a luxury; the artist is a mirror and a voice for society - and if the mirror is crushed, silence becomes deadly. This requires intervention, aid, and justice.
In "Shaving the Dry," I am not merely presenting a visual art exhibition, but rather opening the screen of reality wide open, where the artist in Gaza is cut from his roots, not with barber's scissors, but with the scissors of war.
This work is not about shaving, but about oppression; not about form, but about what remains of a human being who finds in art only what exposes him, not what conceals him.
Here is the artist who has lost his studio, his tools, his home, his bread, and even his silence. Through this experience, he asks the world:
Can art be produced in times of war?
Can an artist create while hungry, anxious, and exiled in his own city?
A dry shave is a collective ritual of forced deprivation. No foam, no water, no dignity. Every razor that passes over the head reminds us of an expulsion notice, a letter of refusal of support, a missed opportunity, an institution that ignored our voice, equipment we no longer own, an empty stomach, a missing painting. This work is a call to action, not only in solidarity but also in recognition that being an artist is a human right and that artists cannot be left to be torn apart alone in the winds of war.
This artwork was created as part of Sahab Urgent Program 2025.
