FAQs

  • Yes. We can provide templates, community paint-day designs, and organizing support. Many participants start with zero experience, what matters is showing up and being willing to learn alongside others.

  • No. Community-created works are welcome. You can coordinate the logistics while artists contribute, organize volunteers to paint stenciled designs, host a wheatpaste party with pre-made materials, or simply provide the public site and connect people. Every role matters.

  • It's a rapid-response challenge: 78 installations in 78 consecutive days, marking 78 years since the Nakba. While each installation is localized, uplifting the cultural interventions together in a concentrated period of time (over a 78 day period), multiplies each individual installation’s reach. The cumulative impact builds momentum over the period and will flood spaces with powerful visual imagery and calls to action.

  • We encourage completing your installation during the campaign window for maximum collective impact. However, if circumstances delay you, we'll work with you to ensure your contribution counts toward the total. Contact us to discuss timing.

Getting Started

Logistics

  • Murals, wheatpastes, banners, projections, stencils, window displays, portable panels, musical or theatrical performance, and community-created works of various mediums all qualify. The key requirements: bold, public-facing, and rooted in local organizing.

  • Public spaces with visibility: building exteriors, community centers, school walls, businesses, transit stations, parks, protest routes. We'll help you identify options and navigate permitting when necessary.

  • Ideally, yes. Working with property owners reduces risk of removal or legal trouble. Some organizers work with sympathetic businesses, community institutions, or tenants associations. We can help brainstorm permission strategies for challenging situations.

  • Depends on your chosen format. Paint-based projects need basic supplies (paint, brushes, drop cloths). Wheatpaste needs paper, adhesive, paste, and tools. We can send supply lists based on your selected medium when you register, if needed.

  • Regretfully, this happens. We recommend documenting your work thoroughly before any potential removal. Part of this campaign is bearing witness, even when erasure occurs. In many cases, an installation being removed can create even more attention to the work and we can use this to uplift the overarching campaign too. We will work with you to ensure your energy and work will not be lost, even if the installation is removed or defaced.

Content, Action & Messaging

  • Absolutely. This is encouraged. Examples: housing justice murals with keys and olive branches, climate art connecting water access to occupied territories, prison abolition pieces linking mass incarceration to military policing. Your installation should reflect both your community's struggle and solidarity with Palestine.

  • Avoid content that appropriates Palestinian symbols without understanding their meaning, flattens complex history into simplistic slogans, or centers your voice over affected communities. We provide guidance on respectful representation, contact us for resources.

  • Up to you. Some installations name-check divestment campaigns or specific policy demands (arms embargoes, ceasefire resolutions). Others focus on broader themes of displacement, memory, and resistance. Both approaches are valid.

  • Acknowledge that the struggle in Palestine belongs to Palestinians, both in Palestine and around the world. Your installation amplifies rather than replaces their voices. Use imagery from Palestinian artists or from neighborhoods like Silwan, with attribution. Connect your local context without implying equivalence. Center Palestinian-led initiatives in your messaging.

  • We are encouraging each installation site to both hold a community event to bring new people into the work and also accompany it with a specific call to action - whether it's a call to join a local divestment campaign, to stop shopping at specific businesses, or to lift up national campaigns. We will be highlighting each installation and the call to action that relates to it throughout the 78 days. 

  • That depends highly on the location, capacity, and interest of those creating the installation. Potential events could include: mural dedication ceremonies, public paint days, teach-ins on Palestinian history, fundraising for Palestinian families, art openings, film screenings, music performances, voter registration drives, etc.

Support & Resources

    • Artwork templates inspired by Art Forces work:

      • Mural templates

      • Posters for Wheatpasting

      • more!

    • Toolkits and Guides including:

      •  How to organize and implement community paint days

      • Making banners and banner hangs 

      • Organizing checklists and timelines

      • Documentation guidelines (photo, video, archival)

    • Connections to local partner networks

    • Strategic guidance on messaging and safety

  • Yes. We have some campaign funds available to help cover materials, permits, and community coordination, and we are also seeking donated art supplies to distribute to participating projects. We encourage groups to fundraise locally and set up a crowdfunding page for each project as a shared fundraising effort.

  • Yes, and we encourage it. Partnerships strengthen local impact and distribute workload. Include the name of other organizers or organizations that you would like to collaborate with. We also encourage building connections between various communities - organizers, artists, business owners, community leaders, etc.

  • We are happy to help brainstorm programming options and think about others to bring into the planning in your location. This is a great way to invite the community to be more involved and take ownership of the space.

Safety & Risks

  • Possibly. Public art advocating for Palestine has drawn scrutiny in some contexts. We provide safety guidelines: document your permissions, work with trusted allies, avoid confrontations with hostile actors, have legal contact info ready, and can help you ensure you know your local protest and installation laws.

  • Document everything immediately. Reach out to our network for rapid response and media support. Some communities organize rotating vigils around installations. We'll help you assess options.

  • Many organizers frame installations as educational or artistic rather than explicitly political when necessary. Some use "culture" or "history" framing to reduce institutional resistance. Contact us for context-specific advice, we've navigated similar challenges.

  • Standard safety practices: work in groups, keep emergency contacts accessible, don't paint late at night in isolated areas, have a buddy system, and know when to disengage from confrontations. 

Impact & Accountability

  • By numbers (78 installations completed) and depth (how many connect to ongoing local organizing, how many lead to sustained commitments). We track installations publicly and highlight stories of transformation beyond metrics. We also hope this breaks through the silence in the media. We will be tracking medial (both traditional and alternative sources) that is published about this campaign.

  • The campaign requires grounding in local organizing, not just creating art, but using installations as launch points for awareness, solidarity, and continued action. We emphasize connection to tangible outcomes: fundraising for affected families, policy advocacy, coalition-building. The organizations involved have also spent years connecting directly with communities in Palestine and uplifting their calls to action.

  • Installations may fade, but relationships and organizing structures can endure. We plan to maintain a digital archive, continue connecting participants to ongoing campaigns, and explore future rapid-response actions. The work doesn't stop at day 78, in many ways it will just be beginning.

  • Independent fundraising efforts tied to installations should disclose beneficiary organizations. We recommend directing funds to verified Palestinian humanitarian organizations, legal defense funds for affected families, or specific community support initiatives.

Have a question we didn't answer?
Email us at 78actsofwitness@proton.me.

We're building this together, and your questions help us improve the support we offer.