A Palestinian girl celebrates in front of a house destroyed by Israeli shelling during the 2014 Israel-Hamas war. Mideast Gaza Eid Al-Fitr Celebration, Gaza, Palestine.

Photo: Majdi Fathi, 2015

In the Face of Death, Destruction, and Displacement, Beauty Plays a Vital Role in Gaza, The Conversation

Stephanie Acker and Dr. Devora Neumark

November 22, 2023

Summary

Even amid the extreme deprivation, infrastructure destruction, and mass displacement of the Israel-Hamas war, people in Gaza continue to create beauty, reflecting an innate human impulse that neuroscience confirms is biologically wired into us. Drawing on research with displaced communities worldwide, the article argued that beauty is not a luxury but a fundamental human need, one that allows displaced people to exert agency, preserve identity, and counter the way being labelled a refugee causes one’s other identities to be overshadowed or disappear entirely. Even before the current war, Palestinians living under occupation actively cultivated beauty through murals, gardens, and communal rituals, as acts of resistance and assertions of belonging. Dr. Neumark’s research with over 200 displaced individuals demonstrated that these acts of beautification heal intergenerational trauma and, through Marianne Hirsch’s concept of “postmemory,” bridge past and present to support ongoing healing and identity preservation.

Key Takeaways

Even amid extreme deprivation, infrastructure destruction, and mass displacement in Gaza - and in the middle of what many are calling genocide - people continue to create beauty, from birthday celebrations to neighbourhood murals to gardens tended in crowded quarters. This reflects an innate human impulse: beauty has been a hallmark of every civilization, and neuroscience confirms our brains are biologically wired to seek it out.
Beauty is not a luxury that waits for safety. As art philosopher Arthur Danto wrote, beauty may be optional for art, but it is not an option for life. One Guinean refugee from Dr. Neumark’s PhD research-creation captured this precisely: “As refugees, we lose our sense of beauty, and when that happens, we lose our sense of everything. Of life itself.”
Even before the current war, Palestinians living under occupation and in refugee camps actively cultivated beauty through murals, mosaics, painted facades, gardens, and communal rituals, as both a form of resistance and an assertion of life and belonging.
“Simple acts” of beautification allow displaced people to exert agency and preserve identity when nearly everything else has been stripped away. Dr. Neumark’s research with over 200 displaced individuals found these acts heal intergenerational trauma, and when children can imagine previous homes through shared stories and images (what scholar Marianne Hirsch calls “postmemories”), present-day beautification bridges past and present, supporting healing and continuity of identity.
Being labelled a refugee often causes a person’s other identities to be overshadowed or disappear entirely. Acts of beautification, from how a space is arranged to the objects chosen to fill it, allow displaced individuals to reassert the fullness of their identity and resist the reduction of their personhood to their displacement status.

Implications for Practitioners

Core humanitarian response: The persistence of beauty-making in the most extreme conditions, including active war in Gaza, challenges the assumption that aesthetics belong at the top of a needs hierarchy. Practitioners should treat the capacity to create and experience beauty as a core rather than supplementary dimension of humanitarian response.
Psychosocial interventions: Community storytelling, garden projects, and other aesthetically oriented initiatives should be recognised as legitimate psychosocial interventions, not add-ons, particularly in protracted displacement contexts where identity and agency are chronically under threat.
Enabling conditions: Humanitarian programs should actively protect and enable the conditions for beautification, including access to materials, permission to personalise spaces, and support for community-led aesthetic practices.
Resistance and resilience: Beauty-making in displacement contexts should be understood as an act of resistance and resilience, not merely coping. Practitioners working in politically charged contexts like Gaza should recognise and respect the political dimensions of aesthetic expression, including murals, gardens, and communal rituals, as assertions of identity, dignity, and the right to a future.
Counter-narratives: Practitioners and organisations should actively work to counter dehumanising narratives by documenting and amplifying the creativity, beauty, and cultural richness of displaced communities. The dominant media framing of displacement through images of destruction alone obscures the full humanity of those affected and shapes how resources and responses are prioritised.