Artists in Times of Upheaval: Resisters, Palestine at Aviva Studios

In Resisters, a single sentence does a lot of work: “The toilet is occupied.” For Iman, a young queer Palestinian woman artist, it becomes the only act of resistance she has left when every other option has been exhausted.

This free staged reading introduces a new play by award-winning writer and performer Mojisola Adebayo, exploring queer and women’s resistance to occupation, war and genocide through art. We meet Iman at a checkpoint, having already tried everything to cross: dancing, clowning, singing, painting, impersonations, blowing huge bubbles, scaling the separation wall, even sending her cat ahead. Each attempt is creative, expressive, inventive – and each one has failed. Now she is staying put, choosing to occupy the only space she has left: the toilet.

That refusal brings her closest yet most distant friend into the picture. Umi, a Black British South African activist and musician visiting from the UK, is determined to get her out. The struggle of wills becomes a battle for love, with a tender secret at its heart.

Resisters is shaped by Adebayo’s theatre work in Palestine and her research into Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore – Jewish lesbian visual artists and stepsisters who led an underground resistance to the Nazis on the island of Jersey during the Second World War. Their legacy sits alongside the experiences of women in Palestine today, informing a work that looks closely at non-violent, creative forms of resistance.

Presented as part of Aviva Studios and Shubbak’s Artists in Times of Upheaval series, Resisters sits within a wider programme exploring the experience of artists working against the backdrop of a world in flux. Launched in Spring 2024, the series focuses on artists in and from regions most exposed to current global forces, asking what space remains for art when life ‘as normal’ no longer seems possible – and why artists continue to create, even then.

This free staged reading becomes not just an introduction to a new play, but part of an ongoing conversation about making art under pressure.