Drawings created by homeless Israeli and Palestinian teenagers displayed during Brighton’s Artists Open Houses Festival

Artwork created by two homeless teenagers from Palestine and Israel will be exhibited in Brighton during the city’s annual Artists Open Houses Festival, which takes place over the five weekends of May, starting Saturday April 30th (Bank Holiday Weekend).

SEAS – Socially Engaged Art Salon – will also hold workshops for children and adults to create artworks which can then be given to rough sleepers to exhibit and sell. SEAS will take place at 2 Steine Gardens, Brighton, BN2 1BT.

“Gaia and Hassan draw(in) the protest” is a collaborative artwork created by Gaia (aged 11) and Hassan (aged 13), two teenagers from homeless families who met in the Arab Jewish “Occupy” tent camp for social justice in Jaffa, Israel in 2012. The series of 30 mixed-media drawings document daily life in the camp during an 8 month period, as well as depicting demonstrations in the country and inequalities in Israeli life from the children’s viewpoint.

The project has been exhibited in various galleries in Israel, including the 2nd International Photography Festival, Jaffa Port, and in the Sport and Youth Museum in Cologne, Germany.

SEAS will also host a series of workshops for all ages on the subject of homelessness every Sunday during the festival between 11am-1pm. Participants will be asked to create miniature sculptures made from pebbles collected from the shore that imagine the lives of people in Brighton’s homeless community. The participants will then be asked to give the small sculptures to rough sleepers who can exhibit, keep or sell them.

The Artists Open Houses festival is the largest event of its kind in the UK. Over 1,500 artists and makers will exhibit their works to thousands of visitors. Last year over 200,000 people visited the festival.

Artists Open Houses offers the chance to buy artworks directly from the artists and makers themselves. There is a hugely diverse selection of artworks on show, from original paintings, prints, graffiti arts, ceramics and textiles to photography, sculpture, crafts, jewellery and many other media.

Entry to the Artists Open Houses festival is free to the public.

SEAS – Socially Engaged Art Salon

2 Steine Gardens, BN2 1BT

Central Trail

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