Mural of Breonna Taylor and Eyad al-Hallaq at 537 Valencia: Conversation with Chris Gazaleh
Mural of Breonna Taylor and Eyad al-Hallaq by Chris Gazaleh, 537 Valencia Street, Mission district, from the series My Ancestors Followed Me Here, 2020; inkjet print; courtesy the artist; © Erina Alejo
Chris Gazaleh’s murals of all scales and palettes
Artist note:
can be felt and found throughout San Francisco, including along the Mission district’s Mission and Valencia Streets. I learned more about Chris’s practice through the photographs of his murals by community photographer Nick DeRenzi at an exhibition called Whose Streets? Our Streets!, which was organized by Nick and Harvey Lozada at Evolved SF in the Mission. The generous spirit and textures of his art allow the viewer an intimate window into his Palestinian roots and insight into the ongoing Palestinian struggle for liberation across the diaspora and the importance of cross-cultural solidarity work, especially in the context of living in the United States.
Interview with Chris Gazaleh conducted by Erina Alejo on October 27, 2020. Part of My Ancestors Followed Me Here, created for Bay Area Walls, a commission series initiated by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2020. This phone conversation with Chris Gazaleh was transcribed by Erina Alejo and has been edited for clarity. A downloadable PDF of this transcript is available on SFMOMA. An excerpt is also published in the newspaper format of this project, designed by Jerlyn Jareunpoon Phillips. Behind the scenes photos of film interview with Chris by Hellene Piñero.
Mural of Breonna Taylor and Eyad al-Hallaq at 537 Valencia: Conversation with Chris Gazaleh
By Chris Gazaleh and Erina Alejo
October 27, 2020
537 Valencia St., Mission District
Mural of Breonna Taylor and Eyad al-Hallaq
Breonna Taylor, age twenty-six, a Black medical worker, was shot and killed by Louisville, Kentucky, police officers in her sleep. Palestinian Eyad al-Hallaq, thirty-two years old with autism, was shot and killed by Israeli police while he was en route to a community center. While in different parts of the world, Palestinians and Black people face the same genocidal tactics just for being who they are and because of where they live. Breonna and Eyad were killed like nothing. Obviously, these are two different places and situations, but the reason they were killed is the same: they are people from certain areas, who live in certain areas, are of certain ethnicities—these things are very much aligned when you look at the histories and struggles of Palestinians and the Black community for freedom and justice.
I literally pulled up on that store wall and started painting the mural titled Local to Global Resist Police Terror. No one was gonna stop me. Within a couple of days, the woman who owned the building hit me up on Instagram and expressed appreciation for the art. I didn’t know what the reaction was going to be. She was hella cool: she allowed it to stay up and let me ride with it. Thank the universe that it’s still up to educate viewers.
I can’t live another day without seeing this connection being made. Everyone wants to paint Black people all of a sudden, to co-opt their ongoing struggle for justice—it just becomes the trendy thing to do? No. We have to also dig deeper and think about the global interconnectedness of social justice work. Moreover, people are like, “Okay, I’m ready to go back to normal.” No way. We need to rethink this way of thinking. The work keeps going after the hype. Eyad, thirty-two; Breonna twenty-six. Palestinian and Black people are targeted and policed.
Defaced Murals
I’ve been vocal about my stance on the oppression of Palestinian people, even before my mural on Breonna and Eyad. The mural is constantly defaced. There has been an anti-Palestinian vandal who has been defacing our community murals for the last ten years, including murals along Clarion Alley. A friend caught this person defacing one of my murals on 16th street and caught them on video. They had come right after I had left the wall.
The following instance happened when I painted on a storefront at 16th and Valencia, after it was defaced eleven times. One day, someone called the cops on me as I was fixing the mural. The cops told me they got a call of a hate crime—my mural. It was obvious the vandal had called on me to stop me from painting it. During the interrogation, the cops asked me if I had permission to paint here. I told them the new owner gave me permission and that I’m not doing anything wrong. Later that same day, I caught the former owner buffing out my mural.
I approached him and asked him what he was doing. He replied that this was a Jewish business that had been there for twenty-five years and was under attack because of this mural. He felt like it had become a direct attack on him. I told him that I was the artist and that I hadn’t even made the connection between the business being Jewish and the content of the mural. It is also beside the message of the mural. I then said I did not appreciate the fact that he had covered up my work countless times and had encouraged others to do so without talking to me about the mural. I questioned why he wanted to silence the Palestinian voice, asking him, “Isn’t this hate? What you are doing?” He obviously didn’t understand.
Things got heated, and the cops came back. Even though this former owner no longer owned the store, he still illegally had a key to it, and literally trespassed on the property. I was told by the new renter that he was no longer paying rent in the space. He vandalized my mural on a wall he had no permission to paint on. The police let him walk away after he trespassed, and then asked me, “Do you have any other questions?” “No. Just get the hell out of here,” I replied. The cops didn’t care, and they should not have even been there. The cops didn’t do shit.
On Being a Palestinian American Artist
Sometimes I wonder, why aren’t there more Palestinian artists vocal about our struggle. We have so many resources here in America and can use our privileges to speak out. Perhaps there is fear about attracting trouble. I understand that it’s hard enough to even be an artist. But there is so much more potential for an artist’s practice when they connect things politically. Why are we afraid to incite trouble when it’s the truth? I’m thankful that I was raised to be truthful.
My dad raised us without that fear of identifying as Palestinian on a public level. He didn’t speak English until he was eight years old. He experienced racism and discrimination as an Arab kid growing up on the west side of Detroit in the ’60s and ’70s, which was a very racist and segregated time.
I’m thankful that my parents didn’t have that traditional outlook and say to me, “Just become a doctor.” They raised me like an American: get a job; take care of yourself. My parents divorced when I was five. I feel like they just got together to have my brother and me. Yet they sacrificed everything to put a roof over our heads, even after parting. My mom became a single mother who worked two to three jobs. My dad was a small business owner who especially struggled through this recession.
My parents understand that it’s not always about success and having the best of the best at the expense of our own happiness—that’s a misconception that immigrants have of living in America. To not look back where we came from, to grow pretentious and disconnected—it’s a big problem to think that’s what it takes to become “American.” I think our homelands are too important to trade in for assimilation. We have to keep our connection to these places throughout the generations. Here in the U.S., I have to use my privilege and speak out for our freedom.
The Role of Murals
During this time of quarantine and in general, murals educate and keep us connected to our surroundings—all the things that are happening around us that we may not pay attention to. Murals amplify voices and share our stances on various issues. It’s important for muralists and artists to contextualize what’s going on, and to offer our wisdom. Many of us are activists who have been organizing in the community for years. We aren’t just coming out of the blue. I particularly think of the work of Cece Carpio and the Trust Your Struggle Collective. For artists like us, who have been doing this work, it’s really beautiful and invaluable for people to see through our murals that the constant struggle for justice is not just a moment, it’s a movement.
Of course, a lot of voices are still left out. Across the Bay, the voices of the unhoused community are constantly put on the backburner. Our society is so contradictory and hypocritical. We have to get past tokenizing our communities. For instance, we have the inclusivity of the All Black Lives Matter movement. I have to break it down in my own mind to truly reflect on all of the Black voices that are still missing. The more we speak out on these issues, the more they become part of the conversations that we’re having in everyday moments. As for the Palestinian struggle for justice, our communities are still learning how to make deeper connections. No one really wants to tokenize my people and me—yet.