YOU MUST LIVE / 2024
Neon
36” W x 14” H
The phrase “from the river to the sea” has complex origins, but was adopted as a protest slogan in the 1960s to advocate for Palestinian liberation from Israeli occupation following the 1964 charter of the PLO’s Palestinian National Council which called for "the recovery of the usurped homeland in its entirety.” This sentiment has lasted since and is currently what fuels the slogan’s usage in contemporary protest language. In English, the phrase goes: “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” It refers to the geographical area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
The widespread suppression of the phrase in western media echoes a greater suppression of Palestinian liberation efforts as a whole. Through systematic erasure of Palestinian suffering and simultaneous weaponization of Jewish trauma, fear of an imagined genocide overshadows the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people by the Israeli government, and the actions of armed resistance beget the collective punishment of those envisioning a future where Palestinians are free and equal. Meant to elicit western solidarity – the phrase rhymes in English, and has been popularized among English channels – “from the river to the sea” is an effort to dismantle zionist attitudes propagated there.
Refaat Alareer, Palestinian writer, poet, professor and activist wrote the words “If I must die, you must live” as the first two lines of his poem If I must die on November 1, 2023 during Israeli retaliation to Hamas’ October 7th attack. He was killed in an Israeli airstrike on December 6th, 2023 in the Gaza Strip.
As the sign stays lit, the red light transitions from red to blue, except for in the phrase “If I must die.” Slight shifts back and forth between the red and blue happen perpetually, the way water can wash away blood, but not entirely.
Read more about the exhibition here.