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As Yet Untitled -Ahmed Muhanna 16 by Ahmed Muhanna أحمد مهنا

As Yet Untitled -Ahmed Muhanna 16

Year 2025
Medium acrylic paints on cardboard aid boxes
Dimensions Unknown
Location Gaza
Materials
acrylic paintscardboard aid boxes

Description

Mixed media on paper or thin card. Printed and stamped packaging elements are present: a blue World Food Programme rectangle with laurel wreath at upper left, a stamp at lower left reading "NOT FOR SALE OR EXCHANGE" with a recycling symbol, a circular stamp at upper right that is not legible, and further faint marks at the right.

A single frontal face fills the upper two thirds of the sheet. Two large eyes are worked in detail, brown irises against white sclera with black pupils, heavy black lashes and brows, with the features below the eyes simplified. No body is shown. Crossed vertical marks overlay the lower face, and running or dripping passages fall through the lower third.

The work carries handwritten text in two languages. In English, in the artist's hand: "Be human" at upper left, "Free Palestine" in red at upper right, "I see you, do you see me?" at lower left, and "freedom is more beautiful" at lower right. Multiple lines of handwritten Arabic overlay the center and lower portions; that text is not legible at the available resolution and has not been transcribed or translated. The palette runs through ochre, tan, cream, dark brown, black, burnt sienna, mustard, and pale green, with touches of red and burgundy and white highlights in the eyes.

Signed lower right and dated 2023.

Record status: the artist has not supplied a title or dimensions for this work. Note a date conflict: the signature reads 2023, while the Year Created field on this record holds 2025, inherited from the parent record and never independently verified. The archive has not altered either value, and the two-year gap raises the question of whether this work belongs to the same body of work as the rest of the intake. Note also that the English phrases above are the artist's own words, written into the work itself, and are transcribed here rather than interpreted. The Arabic remains untranscribed and should be read by an Arabic speaker before this record is used publicly. Everything described above is observable in the archived image and has not been verified against the physical work. The photograph shows a vertical center crease, yellowing and brown staining, handling wear, and ink feathering. The concept and story portion of this field is left empty pending the artist's own words.

Artist Notes

No separate artist notes were supplied for this work. As recorded on the parent record for this intake (97a6e785-84f8-456c-a923-12d030f3f46d), the artist had declined to add his own commentary at the time of intake. Status carried across the series and recorded 2026-09-17. HOWEVER, this work carries the artist's own words inscribed on its face. Transcribed from the primary image, in English and in his hand: "Be human" "Free Palestine" "I see you, do you see me?" "freedom is more beautiful" These are words Ahmed Muhanna wrote into the work itself. They are not commentary supplied to the archive, and they are recorded here verbatim and without interpretation. Multiple lines of handwritten Arabic also appear on this work. They are not legible at the available image resolution and have NOT been transcribed or translated. They may carry further text by the artist and should be read by an Arabic speaker before this record is used publicly. Anything further entered in this field must be Ahmed Muhanna's own words, quoted or summarized from a source he supplied. Do not paraphrase on his behalf.

Preservation Notes

Record provenance: separated from art record 97a6e785-84f8-456c-a923-12d030f3f46d ("Live in The AIR"), where 13 image files had been uploaded to a single record. Source file: ahmedMuhanna16.jpeg. Medium, location, and year are inherited from that parent record and are NOT independently verified for this work. Title is a placeholder pending the artist's own working title. Separation logged 2026-09-16. --- RIGHTS AND REPRODUCTION --- RESOLVED POSITION, stated by PAPA's Director of Operations / Art Collection Manager (Sky) on 2026-09-17 and applied across the "Life In The Air" intake: COPYRIGHT: retained by the artist, Ahmed Muhanna. PAPA does NOT hold copyright in this work. PAPA'S GRANT: reproduction and distribution rights only. PAPA is a licensee, not a rights owner. Nothing in PAPA's grant permits sub-licensing, assignment, or modification unless the contract states otherwise. ARTIST REVENUE: the artist receives 100 percent of NET profits from print sales. Net, not gross. Fulfilment, platform, payment processing, and shipping costs are deducted before the artist's share is calculated. CREDIT LINE: copyright must be attributed to the artist. Recommended form "(c) Ahmed Muhanna", with PAPA credited separately as distributor rather than as rights holder. CUSTODY OF THE CONTRACTS: executed contracts are held off-system by Sky, in the combined roles of Art Collection Manager and Director of Operations, and by the custodian's decision are not uploaded to this dataset. Contact the Art Collection Manager to consult them. Recorded on that authority; asserted in session and not independently verified by the archive. PRESERVATION RISK, CONTINUITY: rights documentation for this work exists only outside the content lake, in the custody of a single individual. If that custody lapses, PAPA's ability to evidence its licence is not recoverable from this archive. A second custodian, or a reference copy held by the foundation rather than an individual, would close this gap. Flagged as a preservation matter, not a compliance one. PUBLIC COPY CAUTION: because the artist's share is calculated on NET, public-facing material must not state or imply "100% of the sale price goes to the artist". The accurate phrasing is 100 percent of net profits. CONTRACT TERMS NOT YET TRANSCRIBED into this record, to be supplied by the custodian: date of execution, term, territory, and whether derivative print editions are expressly covered. DIMENSIONS: no dimensions are recorded for this work. Measurement was not possible at the point of capture and none were supplied with the source file. Not recoverable from the source material. Do not infer dimensions from image proportions or from the parent record. SOURCE FILE FIDELITY: source files for this intake were transmitted from Gaza over a bandwidth-constrained connection. The archived master may not represent the maximum available capture quality and may be insufficient for reproduction at or near the work's physical scale. Check the image asset's pixel dimensions against the intended print size before this work goes to print. INTAKE CONDITIONS: an authorized disclosure recording the circumstances of this intake is held on record c64b9175-dccf-48c8-8499-e0a0d3fee096 and is deliberately NOT duplicated here, to limit replication of sensitive information about the artist. SCOPE NOTE: this rights block was applied across all 13 records in the "Life In The Air" intake on 2026-09-17. --- DATING NOTE: INSCRIBED DATE IS NOT A CREATION DATE --- The date "2023" is inscribed on the face of this work beside the artist's signature. The Year Created field on this record holds 2025, inherited from the parent record at separation and never independently verified. These two values do NOT conflict. Per PAPA (Sky, Art Collection Manager and Director of Operations) on 2026-09-17: the inscribed date is a deliberate element of the artwork, marking a date the artist chose to set down as part of the piece, and is not a record of when the work was made. It must not be read as, converted into, or used to correct the year of creation. Recorded on PAPA's authority; asserted in session and not independently verified by the archive. This account is a staff paraphrase of the artist's intent and has NOT been confirmed in the artist's own words. If Ahmed Muhanna confirms or describes the significance of this date himself, his wording should replace this paragraph and be recorded in artistNotes as his own. DO NOT "correct" the inscribed date or the Year Created field on the basis of the other. Both are recorded deliberately and for different reasons. STILL OPEN on this record: the actual year of creation is unverified. Year Created holds 2025 only because it was copied down in bulk from the parent record. Confirm the true creation year with the artist or the custodian. DATING RESOLVED 2026-09-17: PAPA (Sky, Art Collection Manager and Director of Operations) confirms the year of creation for this work is 2025. The open question recorded above regarding the unverified creation year is now CLOSED. The Year Created field of 2025 stands as confirmed rather than inherited. The inscribed date on the face of the work remains an element of the artwork and is unchanged. --- EXHIBITION HISTORY AND CUSTODY OF ORIGINALS --- Recorded 2026-09-17 on the authority of PAPA (Sky, Art Collection Manager and Director of Operations). Asserted in session; not independently verified by the archive. CONTEXT OF THE BODY OF WORK: since 2024 the artist's defining body of work has been painting on World Food Programme aid boxes. The boxes carry the printed stamp "Not for sale or exchange", which the artist turns into a statement of his own: "we are not for sale or exchange." EXHIBITION: works by this artist were shown in "Gaza: Stories of Hope and Resilience", a travelling container exhibition organised by the World Food Programme and the European Union. It toured Europe in two seasons, September to October 2025 and May to June 2026, including a showing at the Institut du monde arabe, Paris. The artist could not leave Gaza to attend. The tour closed on 28 June 2026. PROVENANCE OF THE TOURED ORIGINALS IS UNKNOWN. WFP moved the works out of Gaza by a confidential route. Ownership, custody, and current physical location following the close of the tour on 28 June 2026 HAVE NOT BEEN ESTABLISHED. ACTION REQUIRED BEFORE ANY PRINT, SALE, OR COLLECTION CLAIM: ownership, custody, and current physical location of the originals must be established first. This applies to any PAPA print edition, any sale, and any public claim that PAPA holds, houses, or represents these works. Do not proceed to commerce on this record until that is resolved and recorded here. NOT DETERMINED: whether this specific work was among those toured. The Location field on this record reads "Gaza" and was inherited at separation from the parent record. It has not been verified since the tour and may no longer be accurate. PHYSICAL SURVIVAL: the artist's studio and canvases were reported destroyed in July 2026 (source: SceneNow, July 2026). Whether this specific work survives is Not yet recorded.

Tags

Ahmed Muhanna 2026-09 intakeLife In The Airdisplaceddecolonial theoryPalestinian diasporaGazaairlifesurvivalcreatelivegenocidejusticeloveAhmed Muhannaencampmentsart prints
Archival Status: public