“Are You Still Alive?”: Survival Politics, Art, and Grief in Visualizing Palestine

Abstract

This research analyses the difficulties and rights violations of the Palestinian people through visual narratives. The Palestinian struggle for freedom has been ongoing for many years, especially under Israel’s military rule and settlement policies. The study focuses on the Visualizing Palestine (VP) platform, which aims to strengthen this struggle and develop an alternative visual language against hegemonic media narratives. The population of this study includes all visual narratives and reports produced on the Palestinian issue, including digital platforms, publications and media content. The sample is specifically selected from VP’s 2021-2023 annual reports and 2023-2025 strategy reports. Using techniques such as Semiotic Analysis, visual content analysis and structural analysis, along with Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) based on Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2006) methodology, this study explores how the visual content of these reports acquires meaning in social, cultural and political contexts. The findings reveal how VP’s visual strategies have reshaped Palestinian identity and historical memory while increasing global awareness and empathy towards the Palestinian issue. The results show that through visual narratives, Palestine’s international visibility is enhanced, awareness of rights violations is strengthened, and global social responses are mobilised. The findings also reveal how visual tools can challenge dominant narratives, promote activism around social justice issues and contribute to the transformation of public discourse.