Building Branches: Collective Witness is, according to the exhibition programme, ‘an exhibition bringing together art, testimony and collective reflection on 3+ years of genocide in Palestine’ at Collective Space, Albert Street, Edinburgh.
Edinburgh Palestine Community Wellbeing Group (EPCWG), who have staged the exhibition, describe their mission as ‘creating networks of care to sustain the movement for a free Palestine’ and offering ‘a community space to process anger, grief, burnout, and other emotions that come with solidarity’. Meetings are facilitated by a mental health professional.
Building Branches: Collective Witness is staged in a fairly intimate gallery space, allowing visitors to immerse themselves in the words and artworks on display. The central installation is a representation of a tree—a Tree of Life—with leaves added by visitors, with their reflections written on them. The exhibition is curated by Zeinab Wasfy (known as Zee) and came out of her academic research into the role of art therapy in Palestinian collective healing. She is an Egyptian multidisciplinary artist, arts practitioner and registered art psychotherapist living and working in Scotland, and is passionate about the work of the EPCWG.
The tree makes a striking centrepiece, with its ‘roots’ emerging from a beautiful rug. Its central position also makes it easy to walk round and read the messages on the leaves. It has been made by the community, with each piece having been found, gifted, or borrowed. Each new leaf helps the tree to grow.
Art, Testimony, and Voices of Solidarity
On the gallery walls are poems and artworks, many by Zee, but many others by poets, writers, and community members. I found the poetry especially moving, and statements about all children being our children particularly heart-rending. It is easy to suffer from ‘news fatigue’ and stop really hearing or seeing the daily death and destruction that is happening. This exhibition made me stop and think, and the compassion in it is profound. The politics may be complex, but what is happening on the ground is pretty straightforward to understand. We should not shy away from it.
Supported by published writers such as Hollie McNish, Max Porter, and Zain Rishi, this exhibition has heft. There were so many words and pictures to draw one’s attention, but a few really stood out for me.
A cartoon depiction (by Faten Elwan and drawn by Gwyn) of a cucumber being smuggled into Gaza and shared, bringing joy to several people, was such a seemingly mundane and yet glorious story. It reminded me of the description by Brian Keenan in An Evil Cradling of being given an orange when he was held captive in Lebanon, mainly blindfolded and in chains. A tiny piece of embroidery called ‘With Love’, made by Rachel Twelftree in traditional Palestinian Tatreez, caught my eye and my heart. Beautiful in itself, Twelftree’s devotion to understanding a culture so different from her own in this way is even more beautiful.
“It is easy to suffer from ‘news fatigue’ and stop really hearing or seeing the daily death and destruction that is happening. This exhibition made me stop and think, and the compassion in it is profound.“
Hollie McNish’s poem ‘Call It a Famine’ cuts to the heart of the results of men’s actions, and I read it over and over.
The whole exhibition repeatedly made me think ‘there but for the grace of God go I’, and got me thinking, as ever, that it’s all too easy to think we are powerless and that it’s easier—nicer—just to get on with our comfortable lives. But we can—and we should—consider the plight of others and do whatever we can.
The exhibition opened over the weekend of 10th and 11th October, and while the Tree is now moving on, the rest of the exhibition stays longer. There have been approaches for the exhibition to travel abroad as well as more widely at home. Who knows how far its reach will be, but I exhort you to catch it while you can at Collective Space, 21 Albert Street, Edinburgh, EH7 5LH.
Featured Image: DAY 1 Building branches – Tree of Life, Zeinab Wasfy, 2026
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