Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Gaza, joe sacco, licaf, palestine, Safaa Odah, the lakes

Safaa Odah Wins Award For Her Cartoons, Some Drawn On Her Tent In Gaza

Palestinian cartoonist and comic creator, Safaa Odah, wins an award for her cartoons, some drawn directly onto her tent in Gaza

Palestinian cartoonist Safaa Odah, creator of the critically-acclaimed work, Safaa and the Tent, has been awarded a Special Award at The Lakes International Comic Art Festival this past weekend. The Award has been made not just for her published work, but also for her efforts to encourage and support young Gazans through running comic workshops. An animation artist and cartoonist with a Master's Degree in Psychology, Safaa Odah lives in Gaza, where her work aims to inspire better physical and mental health. Since the war on Gaza began in October 2023, she has been displaced multiple times, but continues to produce daily cartoons from her tent, sometimes using the tent as her canvas and posting them whenever she can on her Instagram account.

In August last year, she was told that her house was fully destroyed. "Knowing full well that none of the houses will remain standing, I was still hit by a brick with this news," she wrote. "A home is not simply an abode to live in. It is our homeland. My home is my parents' sacrifices, being expatriates for over 40 years… Going through that simply to build a simple home. Today, all our memories were shattered, destroyed, dispersed, maybe even buried. My story is no different from that of any distressed individual or anyone who's affected; we might just have many similarities. I have come to realise that we are walking in a dark labyrinth, a labyrinth with no borders."

Despite her situation, alongside many others, she continued to cartoon, documenting the personal situations of thousands of displaced Palestinians impacted by the war around them. She has also been supporting the displaced children of Gaza, organising "Little Painter" workshops to distract, entertain and support young creative minds, despite their situation.

Safaa And The Tent

Besides appealing to a Palestinian audience, her ambition is that her work touches others worldwide and leaves a positive impact. Earlier this year, the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, working in collaboration with Palestinian cartoonist Mohammad Sabaaneh, published Safaa and the Tent, her diary translated by Nada Hodali, from Ramallah, with all profits from sales going to Safaa. In addition to creating comics, documenting life in Gaza on her Instagram, Safaa has been supporting young Palestinians with "Little Painter" workshops, providing a space for comic creation, drawing, entertainment and distraction from their daily troubles.

Safaa and the Tent is a voluntary collaboration between the Lakes International Comic Art Festival and celebrated Palestinian cartoonist Mohammad Sabaaneh, with promotional support from Cartoonists Rights. A first printing, profits donated to Safaa, has all but sold out.

Nada Hodali, who translated the work, is a Palestinian literary translator from Ramallah. Following her Bachelor's Degree in English Language and Literature with a minor in Translation at Birzeit University, Hodali further continued her education and obtained a Master's Degree in Translation Studies from Durham University. Hodali's translation work has been published in ArabLit Quarterly, TBA21, Anomalous Press, as well as FIKRA Magazine.

When LICAF Festival Director Julie Tait and newly-installed Young Comics Laureate Mollie Ray visited Palestine at the invitation of local comic creators and the Power Group, a youth-led cultural initiative based in Bethlehem, Safaa's work, despite her situation, left them awed. Having already published Safaa and the Tent – a limited edition first printing now sold out – the Festival team agreed Safaa deserved further recognition, and unanimously agreed she should be the recipient of the first-ever LICAF Special Award. Her efforts in Palestine reflect the underlying message of LICAF's Development Agency, "Comics Can Change the World". Remaining copies of Safaa and the Tent were sold over the Festival weekend in Bowness-on-Windermere, alongside other new works by Palestinian creators, some also published by LICAF. Copies will be available soon from the Festival's web store.

• "Safaa's cartoons conjure so many emotions. Some funny, some thought-provoking, some sad, all empowering. There's no question her work has reached beyond borders and into many hearts." – Julie Tait.
• "Some of the most powerful and poignant images to come out of Gaza are not photos. They are to be found in this incredible collection of Safaa Odah's drawings." – Joe Sacco, author of Palestine and War on Gaza.
• "Safaa Odah, the Palestinian cartoonist from Gaza, stood against the brutality of genocide with unfiltered sincerity. Through raw instinct, she dismantled the official narrative that sought to dehumanize Palestinians, turning her art into a powerful rebuttal. When paper became as scarce as bread, safety, and solace, she did not stop – her tent walls became her new canvas, bearing witness to a resilience that could not be erased. We, as Palestinians, know well that Naji al-Ali, the legendary cartoonist assassinated in London in 1987, also began his artistic journey on his tent wall." – Mohammad Sabaaneh

This year's Festival also saw the launch of three new comics by artists from Gaza, also to be published by LICAF. They included copies of a comics anthology, Qusasat or "Snippets", created by 13 young Palestinian artists at a summer camp near Bethlehem, co-led by Mollie Ray from the UK. This was the culmination of a new collaboration between LICAF and the Power Group in Bethlehem, supported by The Amos Trust. The anthology includes the work of Hana Ibrahim Mhani, Dalia Nidal Dar Abed Alhai, Tuleen Hanna Asmari, Shahd Izz Aldeen Alruzze, Nermin Anees Naifeh, Natalie Alz, Karma Ihab Barghothi, Ward Nayef Al-Hantouli, Majd Rafat Wahbeh, Abdalrahim Mutaz Zalloum, Mohammad Majed Al-Raie and Dima Iyas Nassar.

Also offered was Strategies of Surviving, a powerful work by talented animator and illustrator Abod Nasser, which was only available in very limited numbers. Abod says of his work that his sketches are not meant to evoke pity "nor to scenes of war and suffering", but are about the Gazan in understanding life… "When he was forced to reinvent it from scratch."

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