Malak Mattar
Pedagogy of Resistance
Malak Mattar was born in 1999 in the Gaza Strip and grew up under occupation. Coming from a family of artists and creatives, she began making art as a teenager during a period of active conflict, soon selling her works online and exhibiting internationally. She earned a scholarship to study Political Science and another for a Master’s in Fine Arts at London’s Central Saint Martins in 2023. Malak authored and illustrated the acclaimed children’s book Sitti’s Bird (2021), based on her lived experiences, now in its second printing. Despite severe travel restrictions, her works have been collected, published, and featured in numerous global group exhibitions.
Raised amid military occupation and relentless conflict, from adolescence, during bouts of open violence, she turned to art to articulate her own and her people’s experiences. Hailing from a family of creatives, she transmuted pain and adversity into a potent visual language, enabling her to exhibit and sell works worldwide — despite the movement restrictions imposed on Palestinians.
Her academic path is dual and telling: this fusion of political engagement and artistic mastery makes her work both an immediate testimony and a meditative reflection on her homeland’s reality.
Her work transcends artistic expression to become a pedagogical tool, weaving narratives of Palestinian resistance and identity. With her celebrated children’s book Sitti’s Bird (2021), Malak transformed personal trauma into an accessible story — educating new generations while expanding global understanding of her people’s struggles. The power of her art lies in forging empathetic connections, merging intimate lived experience with broader historical and political contexts. As Malak herself states: “My art stems from the need to show that even in the most extreme adversity, life persists — and our Palestinian stories must be told, especially for younger generations.”
Through a visual language both simple and piercing, Mattar crafts a pedagogy of resistance that emerges from suffering yet opens toward hope and rebirth. Her educational commitment turns art into a bridge between cultures — one that dismantles invisible walls and ignites global consciousness about realities too often erased or silenced. Her style became very popular after one of her paintings was used as the cover for a book by Francesca Albanese.
© Elettra Stamboulis
see more https://www.malak-mattar.com/
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