Palestinian Artist Anne Redwan Creates Mandalas as Resistance in Gaza

In Gaza, artist Anne Redwan (born Marah Kalhed al-Za'anin) has become the first to draw mandalas since the war began. She started at age thirteen, using mandalas to release negative energy and psychological trauma, balancing mind and body through color and precision. Though mandalas originate from Hindu and Buddhist traditions, circular motifs appear in many cultures: Native American medicine wheels, Christian rose windows, Celtic cycles, and Arabic labyrinth imagery in the 1585 Roman publication "Hortus rerum mirabilium." Carl Jung introduced mandalas therapeutically in Western psychoanalysis. Redwan draws from urgency to witness hunger, pain, deprivation, and bloodshed, including a dramatic painting of a limbless child based on Samar Abu Elouf's World Press Photo 2025-winning image. She fears being forgotten and sees her drawing as prayer and resistance. She lives alone in her paternal grandmother's home, plays the oud, and creates colorful mandalas as murals for all to see. Other Palestinians have begun making mandalas after seeing her "rotating" designs. These circles measure the temperature of humanity seeking grounding and protection against brutal annihilation, serving as a symbolic "Nostos" to life—a prayer of colors and an ode to protection.