Renowned Armagh artist John B Vallely’s latest exhibition From Wounded Knee to Gaza will be on display from Thursday 30 July – Friday 7 August, in St Mary’s University College as part of Féile an Phobail. Vallely draws on connections between historical and contemporary human suffering, and explores themes of injustice, conflict and resilience. He compares the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza with the Wounded Knee Massacre of the Lakota people by the U.S. Army in 1890. On the 6 August, there will be a special screening of the accompanying film, also titled From Wounded Knee to Gaza, produced by celebrated Armagh filmmaker Antaine Ó Donnaile. This will be followed by a panel discussion examining the contemporary political context, the ethical responsibilities of artists, and the role of creative expression in shaping public consciousness and fostering solidarity. The panel will be chaired by Peter Finn, Principal of St Mary’s College, and will feature the artist, John B Vallely, the director and editor of the film, Antaine Ó Donnaile, and the Iranian academic Azadah Sobout. Her research engages with questions of culture, identity, and political expression, with a particular focus on how narratives of displacement and resistance are shaped and communicated. The exhibition brings together work produced over many years, with the piece Gaza being painted in 2008. Vallely has long been involved with solidarity struggles, and was a founding member of the Armagh Palestinian group. He draws on this experience in his work. “I’m very involved in support for Palestine, and I’m also very interested in the genocide of the American Natives, and it all just came together for me one day and the concept of From Wounded Knee to Gaza hit me like a train. “Wounded Knee was a genocide of the native people by white colonisers from Europe and what’s happening in Palestine is exactly the same.” Speaking about the accompanying film, director Antaine Ó Donnaile said that it was a privilege to document these pieces of art. “Brian had been sending me photographs of works in progress that he was doing in his studio for this series, From Wounded Knee to Gaza. Brian is 85 this year, he’s one of the most important painters in Ireland and combines culture, sport, music, the arts, and it’s a really important legacy series that he’s doing at the minute. So I thought it would be an awful pity not to film him doing it. Vallely and Ó Donnaile spent a number of days together recording the pieces that would make up the final version of the film, in what was a special experience for the filmmaker. “Brian has always been on the side of the underdog. He celebrates the best in people, so it was a real privilege to be there, to see him and smell the oils, and be part of that in his studio.” There are many stories told in the nineteen paintings that form part of the exhibition, such as that of Zintkála Nuni, who became known as Lost Little Bird and was the inspiration for one of Vallely’s pieces. Nuni was found alive as a months-old baby still strapped to her dead mother’s body four days after the massacre at Wounded Knee. Nothing was known of her identity or Lakota birth name, she was named Zintkála Nuni. Vallely draws a striking parallel between Zintkála Nuni’s story and that of five-year-old Palestinian girl, Hind Rajab. Hind’s story was documented in the film ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab,’ as she spoke for three hours to dispatchers of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, as she slowly died in a car beside six relatives following an attack by Israeli tanks. She told the dispatcher her class in school was called ‘the Butterfly class,’ and Vallely has drawn on this image poignantly in his works A Little Butterfly Named Hind Rajab, The Butterflies of Gaza, and Butterflies Soar in Gaza. Despite the Red Crescent pleading with Israeli IDF soldiers to be allowed to send a nearby ambulance to rescue Hind, they refused and moved tanks up close to the destroyed car. Eventually, Hind went silent and it was later determined that the IDF had fired at least 335 high-velocity rounds into the car. Vallely is firm on the role of the arts in giving a voice to those who otherwise would not have one. “I think creative people – writers, artists, musicians – have a duty, and a right, to speak out. We shouldn’t be defined by convention, and we shouldn’t be afraid.” He is joined in these convictions by Ó Donnaile, who also spoke about the impact of small steps and small actions, both by artists and filmmakers and by others, and how these actions can sometimes seem insignificant but can often lead to real change. “If you influence one or two people, you can change mindsets. You can live it in your own life as well. I’m reminded of the Dunnes Stores workers who started the strike during the apartheid struggle. They were battling on their own for many years and ended up changing the law, and are now celebrated as a great example of how grassroots activism can have a great impact.” Vallely believes that the Irish people naturally identify with oppressed people around the globe. “I think Irish people, because of centuries of oppression, are inclined to identify with the underdog, and that’s what’s happening here. We don’t identify with the big and the powerful and the rich. “I spent some time recently with a representative of the group PATHSTAR, who are campaigning on behalf of the Lakota people. She said that they have to restore knowledge that we take for granted. Here in Ireland, lots of things happened to us but we still retained stories. A big campaign they now have is trying to reignite all the native languages that were suppressed and were there for thousands of years before.” Brian Vallely’s exhibition From Wounded Knee to Gaza will be available to view from Thursday 30 July – Friday 7 August in St Mary’s University College. The accompanying film by Antaine Ó Donnaile will be screened in St Mary’s on Thursday 6 August at 5pm, and will be followed by the panel discussion.
