I Dream of Freedom

Asaad Nateel is a Palestinian photographer, who was also studying to become an engineer before the genocide began. Asaad’s zine tells the tale of his lived experience through the first year of the genocide – the repeated displacements, the task of survival as a family, and amidst this all, how to keep the memory of one’s dreams alive. Primarily meant to be a zine focused on his masterful visual imprints – photographs capturing everything from a rainbow, corpses, life in tents, shared laughter, and eternal dreams , all amidst the rubble. His masterful execution with the precise combination of light, depth of field & visual perspectives, down to the nuances of choices on foregrounding life in the backdrop of the genocide, shines through the zine. However, his stunning prose, translated by volunteers at Wa’ad mutual aid group, adds a profound depth and dimension to his photography. What we are left with is a sensory & evocative experience of living through the genocide. How life becomes not merely survival through despair or devastation, but a tender, careful, memory of one’s dreams, of caressing and nourishing these despite the most unimaginable unfathomable of days. 

In Asaad’s words: “My hope for the future remains steadfast, even if everything around me encourages me to despair. I dream of freedom. I dream of a dignified life. I dream of achieving my professional ambitions. This is what keeps me going, and I won’t give up.”

ZinesforFalastin is an entirely volunteer-driven mutual aid project with two central goals: 

1. centering & amplifying indigenous Palestinian voices – captured via our zines

2. distributing zines towards fundraising for the artists’ & their families – 100% of the proceeds go to the artists.

The project was born of a rather simple yearning, a yearning to build a bridge between worlds. That of our kin in Gaza, Palestine, and the rest of us. A conduit – so their words become our primary sense organ over any and all discourses and reflections on the realities of dreams and survival through this genocide. With the hope that such bridges, ultimately, become unshakeable and invincible, leading us into the inevitability of a Free Palestine. 

Follow our project on Instagram: @zinesforfalastin ; or email us with any questions or suggestions for collaborations: zinesforfalastin@gmail.com