Banksy’s Art at The Walled Off Hotel, Bethlehem 2017

The newly opened Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem is an active art installation by British graffitist Banksy. It’s a fully functioning art hotel filled to the brim with Banksy’s artwork. The street artist styled the hotel to resemble “an English gentleman’s club from colonial times,” according to a statement, which appears to acknowledge Britain’s historical role in the Middle East, and is filled with Banksy creations that are playful and strongly political.

If you stay at the Walled Off you could find yourself literally sleeping inside a work of art. Here we look into some of the Banksy artworks that you can expect to see inside the Walled Off Hotel.

An Israeli soldier and a Palestinian protester engage in a pillow fight releasing white feathers, like a white dove, representing peace, shot down …

The white feathers have many meaning, that of also Angels lost to the sea …

There is an oil paintings of waves lashing against the shore which is littered with life-jackets discarded by refugees …

A fire flickering in the grate glows under a pile of concrete rubble, like a blaze at a bomb site …

A classical bust is engulfed by a cloud of tear gas …

A helium heart balloon floating next to barbed wire in a red presidential suite, perhaps red to signify the blood lost …

A painting of flowers in a vase behind ugly grids restricting site …

A framed old test card which was usually shown when no programmes were being broadcast spelling “Free Palestine” in chalk, where originally the girl was playing noughts and crosses …

Three cupids falling from heaven with emergency oxygen breathe masks, in front of a graffiti stained glass window, indicating perhaps starvation of love …

Security, or encroaching on human privacy, is to the max …

Jesus with a red dot target shoot on his head …

A painting of children using an Israeli army watch tower as a swing ride, the mural to this was on the remains of a house that was destroyed during the 50-day Israeli assault, in the Gaza Strip town in February 2015. Banksy’s famous known image of the peace thrower in the back ground whose Molotov becomes a bouquet of flowers passes over into three frames …

The painting shows a violent upheaval and destruction of peoples lives and homes …

One of the most sombre images is that of three children jumping over the Pearly gates

To view all the artwork or even stay at the The Walled Off  Hotel, the address is 182 Caritas Street, Bethlehem, Palestine and reservations can be made here.

Photo credit Banksy

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