SANTA'S GHETTO
For those of you not in the know, Santas Ghetto is a yearly event where a group of street artists are brought together to showcase their talents providing a contrast to the avaricious consumerism of Christmas in the 21st century. Last year they were appropriately positioned in the manic shopping mayhem of Oxford street, but this year they have gone a step further and taken the event to the one place people generally don’t think about in the run up to Dec 25th.. Bethlehem. In a former chicken shop opposite the church of nativity, in a town now dominated by poverty and conflict rather than celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, the work of more than 30 artists is being displayed. Bringing together artists from Ramallah, Gaza and Bethlehem's Dehaisha refugee camp plus others from as far afield as Washington DC, Madrid and East Sussex, it is 3 floors of creative anarchy.
If you’re brave enough , they are happy to receive visitors, and you could be feasting your eyes on works by artists including Abed al Rohan Mousain, Sam 3, Ron English and Sir Peter Blake. It features a particularly contentious piece by Souleiman Mansour which was considered the ‘pickled shark’ of the Middle East, for obvious reasons!
However, those nice people at Santas Ghetto refuse to be drawn into political debate, and prefer to speak with actions rather than words. All money raised from sale of art there is going to be donated to local projects for kids and young people. Now that’s what Christmas is all about!
