Feature: Istanbul exhibition highlights conflicts in Gaza through Palestinian children's eyes

ISTANBUL, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- As visitors enter the exhibition hall at Istanbul's Taksim Square, they are greeted by an image, albeit of its childish strokes, vividly depicting a rocket-propelled grenade piercing the heart of a woman.

This poignant artwork is the creation of Mona, a six-year-old Palestinian girl who lost her mother during the 2009 Gaza War. Her painting, generated into a clip of animation with the help of artificial intelligence, provides a raw and unfiltered glimpse into the most traumatic episode of her young life, offering a candid perspective seen through the eyes of a child.

Mona is one of the many Gazan children who have poured their hearts and souls into their artworks, depicting the horrors and hopes of living in a war zone. Their paintings are part of the "Bulletproof Dreams: Gazan Child Painters" exhibition, which showcases 266 pieces of art by Palestinian children from the Gaza Strip.

The month-long exhibition, which opened on Dec. 29, 2023, aims to raise awareness and empathy for the plight of the Gazan people, especially the children, who have suffered from decades of violence and oppression.

The exhibition is the brainchild of Abdullah Aytekin, a Turkish journalist who covered the Gaza War of 2008-2009. He was moved by the stories and drawings of the children he met in Gaza, who expressed their pain and trauma with honesty and innocence. He decided to collect and display their paintings, hoping to give them a voice and a platform to share their experiences with the world.

"The paintings express purely the pain without any kind of biased view," Aytekin said, adding that the children's art is more powerful and authentic than any news report or documentary.

He collaborated with Palestinian authorities to transport the paintings from Gaza to Türkiye, overcoming many obstacles and losing many artworks along the way. Out of nearly a thousand paintings he gathered, only 266 survived the journey.

The exhibition has drawn a lot of attention and praise, including from Türkiye's First Lady Emine Erdogan, who attended the opening ceremony.

She said that the exhibition conveys the experiences and feelings of Gazan children in the most straightforward manner.

"Indeed, their drawings serve as a reflection of their suffering," the first lady added.

Fahrettin Altun, the presidency's director of communications, also spoke at the opening, stressing the importance of the exhibition in highlighting the impact of conflicts and massacres on children.

"This exhibition, consisting of paintings of Gazan children drawing on paper with their little fingers what they perceive and feel in their own world and their own hearts and souls, clearly reveals their experiences and feelings," Altun said.