In London’s saturated art scene of museums and galleries, Palestinian stories are often left out of the frame.

But in the heart of the city, just steps from the constant churn of King’s Cross Station, a powerful exhibition interrupts the rhythm. On limited display, it compels passersby to slow down, double-take, and stop. Breaking their stride, and perhaps their silence.

Before them stands a colossal Phoenix encased behind the glass walls of Central Saint Martin’s (CSM) Window Gallery. Wings outstretched, aflame in crimson oils, the mythical bird almost blazes through the panels like a beacon, staring back, refusing to die.

Standing at seven feet tall and 12 feet wide, the mural is the centrepiece of Malak Mattar’s Falasteen, the first solo exhibition by a Palestinian artist ever held at CSM, and a rare moment of rupture in the institution’s long silence around Palestine. 

The art space is carved into the side of the prestigious art school’s Granary Building, an immense Victorian-era warehouse built from weathered brown brick. It dates back to the 1840s, a time when Britain’s empire was at its height, and Palestine was under Ottoman rule – still decades before Theodore Herzl would pen Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), envisioning a future Jewish state “preferably in Palestine,” and long before the Balfour Declaration would redraw history.

Now, inside these colonial-era walls, Mattar’s mural speaks back, telling the story of a stolen land, cindered olive trees and charred bodies. Bearing witness to a war that, since 1948, has never truly ended, only paused, and to a Palestinian resolve that is so strong it even has its own term: sumud.

Memory under siege

Her work arrives during one of the darkest chapters in Gaza’s history.

Since October 2023, Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed almost 53,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children. Entire neighbourhoods have been flattened. Families have been erased. Cultural memory, heritage, and history are being wiped out alongside lives. What many are calling a genocide is unfolding in real time, while much of the world continues to look away.

Palestinian art, especially now, matters as a form of preservation of that which is constantly under threat: names, stories, identity. Life itself.

As Palestinian art curator Aser El Saqqa, and managing director of Arts Canteen puts it: “Malak’s exhibition comes at a very significant moment, as she reflects on the bitter reality in Gaza particularly, and Palestine generally.

Mattar, 25, is small in stature, and is dwarfed by her creation – Gaza is a Phoenix. Draped in black, a shawl embroidered with red tatreez patterns crosses her shoulders. Her dark doe-eyes resemble those of the girls from her early paintings. But it’s her voice that holds you. Deep and rasped with a history of a time before her, but of a struggle that still continues.

When she speaks, her words emerge like defiant brushstrokes, deliberate and bold.

“The Phoenix is a powerful symbol in Gaza,” she says. “It’s the logo of our municipality. Even when they want us all dead, we rise, again and again.”

Across the mural, there is a collage of layered images, many feel familiar to those who have been following the news.

A predatory tank crawls toward makeshift shelters. Somewhere in the middle, schoolchildren sit hunched under rubble, trying to study through war. And towards the left, a gorilla glares back, representing the animals that had once escaped Gaza’s small zoo after Israeli attacks.

Falasteen isn’t just about Gaza today. It is, as Mattar explains, about the Nakba as a living, ongoing reality.

“This is our memory,” she says. “Our grief, our rage, and our love of life. I painted the boy from Jabalia Camp, clenching a stone in his fist. I couldn’t find his name, but his image from the First Intifada is one that I would often come across as I grew up, on the pages of social media. It stayed with me. He’s part of our collective history, part of what it means to resist.”

To the right, there is a woman clinging to a half-uprooted olive tree. “She’s real too. Mahfouza Odeh. That photo says everything: how much we love the land, and how violently it’s been taken.”

Art as survival

Mattar’s work has always been an act of record-keeping, an insistence on Palestinian presence in the face of constant erasure.“Our history didn’t start in 1948. Our grandparents, my grandparents, suffered forced displacement and occupation. We still live under siege, checkpoints, colonisation. The genocide now is only the latest chapter. This mural, this show — it’s a reminder that we are still here.”

Her own family were displaced to Gaza after the Nakba. Her father comes from the village of Al Jorah, now called Ashkelon, while her mother comes from al-Batani al-Sharqi, just outside Gaza.

Mattar was born in Gaza City in 1999, and began painting at 14 during the 2014 Israeli assault that lasted for 51 days, at the time it felt like the “longest war”. Her colourful pieces of girls with long braids and the familiar doe-eyes, much like her own, were paintings of “hope”. “Peace was all I had ever wanted”.

But after October 7, her work took a dark turn. Her dreams of hope were replaced with the anguish of a nightmare that she couldn’t escape.

She had arrived in London just one day earlier, on October 6, to begin her Masters at Central Saint Martins. By the next morning, war had broken out. Her family, her siblings, her friends, everyone she loved, was now trapped in Gaza. And she was alone.

“Everything I was painting, they were inside of it. I couldn’t escape it. The nightmare was in the studio with me.”

While her family was under bombardment, Mattar had hoped for the school to offer some support. “Anything.”

But what followed, she says, was silence.

Central Saint Martins is part of the University of the Arts London (UAL). Four days after Russia invaded Ukraine, UAL had issued a clear statement condemning the violence and offering support to affected students. It’s worth noting that UAL’s president, James Purnell, is a former Labour MP who once served as chair of Labour Friends of Israel.

But over Palestine, there were no statements.

Central Saint Martins was approached for comment, but at the time of publication had not responded.

“It was isolating. To make work about genocide, in a place that refused to see you.”

The exhibition, first proposed in early 2024, was nearly cancelled. It was only with the support of fellow students and staff that it moved ahead — and even then, pared down to a tight three-day window. Still, the timing speaks volumes: the show opens on May 15, the day of Nakba commemoration.

“That wasn’t even intentional by the school, I don’t think. But for me, it’s perfect. A show like this, on that day, in this place, that’s resistance. That’s proof we exist.”

Standing in front of the mural, the Phoenix glows in the late afternoon light. Mattar watches from the side as curious passersby stop, even for a moment, to take in her creation.

“This is a painting about wanting to live,” she says. “Wanting to study, to dance, to love, to just be. It’s a message of hope, and of resistance. The Nakba is ongoing, but we’re still here. And we’re not going anywhere.”

The Falasteen exhibition will be on view at the Window Gallery, Central Saint Martins in London, for a limited time from May 15 to May 18.