[via omjp]

The Olympia-Rafah Mural Art Project presents...
Up Against the Wall—from Palestine to Mexico

Friday, January 25th, St. John’s Episcopal Church Parish Hall, 7 p.m.

Carlos Marentes of Comité Pro-Amnistía General y Justicia Social in Seattle and Susan Greene of Break the Silence Mural Project in the Bay Area will present Up Against the Wall—from Palestine to Mexico, Friday, January 25th, 7 p.m., in the Parish Hall at St. John’s Episcopal Church, 114 20th Ave SE in Olympia.

Marentes and Greene will discuss connections between the walls constructed and proposed on the U.S.-Mexico border and those in the Israeli occupied West Bank and Gaza and, also, connections between the struggles of the oppressed populations impacted by these walls.

Marentes, an immigrant rights activist, grew up in the Rio Grande Valley of West Texas where he witnessed poverty, racism, and the constant struggle of farm worker families. He has actively supported indigenous struggles in Chiapas in Mexico, Ecuador, and Chile. An Evergreen graduate, Marentes believes that many social-justice struggles stem from the same foundations and that people must find points of unity between struggles to effectively address them.

Susan Greene has twenty years of experience with collaborative community-based mural projects in Latin America, Occupied Palestine, and in the San Francisco Bay area. She is one of four Jewish American artists who formed Break the Silence Mural Project and with Palestinian communities created murals in West Bank and Gaza refugee camps. A clinical psychologist, Greene teaches at the San Francisco Art Institute and has long been involved with public art practice and the intersection with memory and history.

The free event is co-sponsored by the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice and the Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project and is the second in a series of programs to link the Israeli-Palestinian issue with other social justice issues. Each event creates opportunities for envisioning images for the Olympia-Rafah Mural Project to be painted in downtown Olympia later this year. The mural will honor the relationship between Olympia and Rafah and, also, the common struggles for justice and the hidden histories that impact members of this community.

For more information call (360)754-3998 or email mural@rachelcorriefoundation.org .