US artists censored for painting watermelons
These US artists were censored for painting watermelons and other Palestinian symbols during an Arab-American Heritage Month exhibition in Washington DC. Refusing to be silenced, they told TRT World they took down their artwork from the bookstore in charge of the event. The artists organised a walkout protest in front of the building and performed traditional Palestinian dances to show that Palestinian culture won’t be erased. “There have been artists that have just been turned down, whose work has been banned, who have been blacklisted from many galleries,” Andrea Fort, the organiser of the protest, says, adding that freedom of speech and artistic freedom are not respected in the US when it comes to Palestine.“Anti-Palestinian sentiments are deeply seeded,” she says. The bookstore, Politics and Prose has yet to respond to TRT World’s inquiries for comments.