The Connective Role of Art in UCLA’s Pro-Palestine Encampment

Protest posters created by participants in the UCLA encampment on April 27, 2024. Image courtesy of the artists.

This spring, the pro-Palestinian campus occupation at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) quickly became the focus of major national news outlets. Over the course of the week—the encampment was set up early Thursday morning, April 25,¹ and swept by police one week later on May 2²—helicopters filmed the encampment’s fluctuating perimeter³ from overhead as press and student photographers on the ground documented the brutality against pro-Palestine protestors at the hands of police and Zionist counter-protestors.⁴ Though images of violent conflict dominated the national narrative, as participants, we saw a different story unfold: Within the encampment, a vibrant cultural conversation flourished as people from diverse backgrounds utilized art to communicate and strengthen bonds. During our time in the encampment, we created daily zines documenting the art made by students, faculty, and the surrounding community, who used art to express and cohere their solidarity with the Palestinian people in the face of state-sanctioned violence.

The campus demonstration was primarily organized by the UCLA chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the UC Divest Coalition, whose main demand was for the UC system—which currently has $32 billion in holdings invested in companies connected to Israel, many of them related to the manufacturing of weapons and surveillance technologies utilized by the Israel Defense Force—to divest from all entities complicit in the war.⁵ Along with communicating solidarity with those in Gaza and demanding divestment, UCLA encampment organizers—in line with others across the nation and world—illustrated the historical context and current status of Israel’s 76-year occupation of Palestine. Media outlets following the story (and the UC administration itself, who called the gathering “unlawful”⁶) focused largely on the violent attacks on the encampment, simultaneously overlooking the peaceful, educational, and community-centric aspects of the enclave. Even though there were news reports that seemed to express implicit support for encampment participants, such as CNN’s independent investigation, which revealed the identity of multiple attackers who had violently sieged the encampment,⁷ most mainstream news coverage didn’t delve into the specific goals of the protestors. Those objectives included calls for full transparency surrounding UC’s assets, such as investments, donations, and grants; severing ties with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD); and an immediate and permanent ceasefire.⁸

Student protesters attempt to block police from advancing up the stairs and into the UCLA encampment, May 1, 2024.
Photo: Keegan Holden.

Since the media’s narrative was narrow, and we could only delegate a handful of students to speak to the press, art created by the masses inside the encampment played a key role, setting the backdrop for media coverage and allowing us to take control of the narrative by speaking in a resonant, collective voice. From the first day, the encampment’s exterior walls were lined with dozens of informational panels detailing statistics about the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, as well as those more broadly and indiscriminately detained by Israel. One artwork painted on a salvaged door pictured a bearded man with his hands bound amongst chilling statistics about Palestinian children and families detained by Israel since 1967 (for instance, 73% experienced physical violence following their arrest and 49% were detained in their homes in the middle of the night).⁹ The top of the panel read “innocence behind bars” in bright red lettering, no doubt bringing to mind the blood that has been on the hands of the Israeli government for generations.

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Visual media has historically been at the heart of social movements, used to strengthen the unity and power of their messages. In the nineteenth century, Paul Revere spurred on the Revolutionary War with his engraving of the Boston Massacre, which illustrated the brutality and bloodshed of the conflict and was printed on hundreds of pamphlets.¹⁰ Barbara Kruger’s familiar Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground) (1989) was created for the 1989 March for Women’s Equality and Women’s Life, where it featured on fliers at the 300-thousand-person rally.¹¹ And, of course, symbols such as the raised fist, peace sign, or the three-finger salute have become iconic symbols for popular resistance movements. Visual art’s capacities —to agitate, to criticize, and to unify— were leveraged in the UCLA protest as well.

A vibrant collection of portraits and text-based signs emerged during the first few days of the encampment. Some participants took directly to the inner barrier walls, using them as canvases to broadcast their messages. Royce Quad, which encompasses Powell Library, Royce Hall, and the ground in between,¹² became an epicenter in which the community expressed their disdain for the colonial violence inflicted upon Gaza and rose up against the institutions complicit in it. Following an expansion of the encampment on the fifth day, protestors began filling the walkways and walls of Royce Hall with art and other visual media.¹³ Text reading “free free Palestine” was stenciled on the ground at the building’s entrance. Just above, purple spray paint reading “free Palestine!! death 2 Zionism” sprawled across the building’s doors. Bricks in the walkways boasted chalked-on calls-to-action such as “power 2 the people,” “we condemn genocide,” and “ceasefire now!” In paint and marker, other phrases echoed across the artworks, including “long live the Intifada” and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Common symbols of defiance popped up across the encampment, too: watermelons, a stealth motif of Palestine popularized in 1967 when Israel banned the display of the Palestinian flag in Gaza and the West Bank; the black-and-white keffiyah, a headdress with motifs of olive leaves, trade routes, and fishnets, representing the struggle for Palestinian self-determination; olive trees, a Palestinian agriculture staple and symbol of peace;¹⁴ and broken chains, symbolizing liberation for Palestinians currently detained by Israel without a charge or trial. Handala, a cartoon of a Palestinian child refugee, also appeared across the artwork, depicted with his back turned as a gesture of witness and refusal.¹⁵ By occupying our campus with our bodies and its walls with our art, we expressed our own refusal.

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Established in 1929, Royce Quad has long been a central campus landmark for student demonstrators who temporarily molded the classic UCLA mainstay into a place that better reflected their values. The first documented student activism occurred there in 1934, when 3,000 people protested the suspension of several students for allegedly working with the National Student League, an organization with revolutionary communist ideals.¹⁶ In 1986, the UC Board of Regents divested $3.1 billion —then the largest university divestment in the country—from entities related to South Africa’s apartheid government following demonstrations by more than 2,000 students and community members the year prior.¹⁷ Artist and musician Greyson Suchecki, a current UCLA student whose artwork we featured in one of our zines, stayed in the encampment for most of its existence. He explained that using Royce Quad as the protest venue was a key tactic in expressing the “massive amount of community support” to the UC administration. The use of notable campus architecture, particularly the placement of a giant Palestinian flag atop Powell Library, was “a reclamation of a UCLA landmark, to make it something that really represented the students,” he said.

As the encampment forged on, the community grew stronger. Voices from diverse backgrounds joined to support an intersectional cause —protesters used signage to identify themselves as “Latinos for Palestine,” “Kenya for Palestine,” “Lesbians for Palestine,” or “Teachers for Palestine.” Suchecki also spoke of music’s role in the camp, calling the communal use of chants, drums, and trumpets a “beautiful metaphor” for the idea that our voices are stronger together. He continued “[As a musician,] I want to be someone who can spread my belief in what is right with an audience who will hear my voice…gaining a platform and really using it is the best thing an artist can do to affect change.” Across the week, he grew close to other participants as they chatted for hours about what brought them to the encampment, explaining that everyone checked in on each other, making the peaceful space “feel like a home.” He also recalled that many fellow protestors had families stuck in Gaza, making the genocide “extremely personal.”

Throughout the week, there were numerous individual counter-protestor break-ins, which culminated in a violent attack late Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, in which Zionists threw fireworks into the camp and sprayed protestors with mace.¹⁸ While these attacks deeply threatened the community’s safety, the resilience and dedication of the protestors persisted. Suchecki remembers rushing home to get mace out of his eyes, clothes, and hair after the attacks, but he came back the following day nevertheless. Through the struggles and traumatic events of the week, Suchecki said that art-making and a sense of community helped him feel solace in his personal, yet shared, fight for peace. From the first tent erected to the last one destroyed, participants continued to create art up until the encampment’s final day.

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The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 displaced more than 750,000 Palestinians living in the region.¹⁹ In the three-quarters-century that has since passed, little has improved for Palestine, and the Western world remains complicit, if not directly involved, in the Israeli occupation.²⁰ Today, half of the population of Gaza is under 18 years old, which means many Palestinians have known nothing but occupation.²¹ Generational trauma does not stop at the borders of Gaza or the West Bank but is shared by the families who have fled and still have deep connections to the region; by diasporic students who study within our American universities; and by friends, allies, and all those who feel helpless in the face of genocide. The reality of these traumas, which are deeply embedded and challenging to move through, was at the heart of the UCLA protests, as was a steadfast resilience. One memorable watercolor painting depicted a student protestor surrounded by tents. Royce Hall looms in the background—the illustration features the encampment itself. Wearing a keffiyeh and mask, the solitary figure stares out into the distance, their shoulders slightly slumped, their eyes expressing a deep tiredness. Yet, on the barricades in the foreground, protest signs reading “Latinas for Palestine,” “UCLA Divest,” and “Fuera $$ Corruptos” communicate a sense of collectivity, energized through community to keep fighting towards a free Palestine.

Despite the protestors’ resilience, in the early morning of May 2, police officers in riot gear swarmed the area, using tear gas and flash bangs. Protestors reported that officers shot rubber bullets that whistled through the air, ripping through the artwork and causing injuries. Officers smashed through the protective wood barriers, asserting their authority over the protestors. While helicopters roared overhead, the world watched with tired eyes as hundreds were arrested, zip-tied, and loaded into buses.²² The pro-Palestine encampment now numbers among the historic student-led movements and uprisings staged in the gigantic, nearly century-old Royce Quad, its own kind of canvas.

Many young people in today’s political climate share feelings of isolation and powerlessness in the face of global challenges. Combating the policies of entire countries can feel overwhelming. Surrounded by hundreds of protest signs and art pieces, the encampment community cultivated an environment where no one would feel alone—we also saw firsthand the power of art to communicate, humanize, and mobilize. While UCLA has yet to divest, let alone fully disclose its ties to Israel, the mass collective action on the part of the students demonstrates what is possible. This type of energetic vigor within a protest movement is precisely what large institutions fear most. At UCLA, the chalk-covered pavements and the painted buildings have been washed away, but they remain a vital part of UCLA’s history—a message of peace and healing in the face of our violent political landscape, the call to act on our convictions.

This essay was originally published in Carla issue 37.

UCLA encampment occupying Royce Quad shortly before law enforcement began forcibly removing the demonstration and arresting more than 200 protesters, May 1, 2024. Photo: Keegan Holden.

Watercolor created by a participant in the UCLA encampment on April 29, 2024. Image courtesy of the artist.

Watermelons, dozens of red handprints, and the Palestinian flag painted on wood panels inside the encampment barricade near UCLA’s Tongva Steps, May 1, 2024. Photo: Keegan Holden.

Sign detailing Israel’s decades-long detainment and imprisonment of Palestinians without charge or trial created by participants in the UCLA encampment on April 25, 2024. Image courtesy of the artists.