Kite Making

The Freedom Theatre and Artists on the Frontline

The Freedom Theatre is a theatre and cultural centre in Jenin refugee camp, occupied Palestine. We stage professional theatre productions; hold theatre workshops in the refugee camp, Jenin town, and villages; offer training in acting, pedagogy, and photography; and publish books, exhibitions, and short films.

Since we opened our doors in 2006, we have made theatre and visual art available to every young person in Jenin refugee camp. Our work has made Jenin refugee camp known in Palestine and internationally for innovative, thought-provoking theatre and media productions. We have created a generation of artists and leaders, who one day will be at the forefront of the Palestinian liberation movement.

Artists on the Frontline is a creative force for radical artists using culture as a form of resistance.

Led by those at the forefront of social and political transformation, we work at the intersection of arts, activism, and politics, creating everything from theatre to protest performance, virtual reality to immersive audio, platforms for citizen journalism and digital archives.

Award-winning projects build space for groundbreaking, revolutionary, and uncensored exchanges—where bold ideas ignite action, innovative models of organising are born, and cultural resistance powers change.

© Fiona Ferguson

Why Kites?

Flying kites has long been a symbol of defiance and hope in Palestine. In 2011, 15,000 children in Gaza broke the world record for the largest number of kites flown simultaneously.

On the 7th of December, 2023, writer, academic, and poet Dr Refaat Alareer was murdered in a targeted attack. His last poem, “If I Die, You Must Live to Tell My Story,” used the image of a white kite.^[1] Since then, white kites have been used as a symbol of solidarity in protests globally.

How To Make Small Kites

The designs and guide below are from the creative protest in New York organized by individual theatre-makers and Friends of the Freedom Theatre USA, Noor Theatre, Al Límite Collective, National Queer Theatre, Theatre of the Oppressed NYC, and Queers for a Liberated Palestine.

Materials

• Two dowels or bamboo rods, one shorter than the other for the cross-beam
• String or thin bendable wire
• White or whatever colour fabric you like, light fabric that can hold paint
• Strips of fabric for the tail and bows

Tools

• Pliers
• Scissors
• Hot glue gun
• Hot glue sticks

Steps

1. Cut one dowel/ stick shorter than the other, (depending on how big your kite is, will change the length)
2. Make a cross or X shape where you want the cross beam to be.
3. Wrap the string or wire tightly around those two sticks where they cross.
4. Use scissors or pliers to make a small indentation at each of the 4 points of the kite in order to give the string or wire a little notch to nestle into it.
5. Begin to wrap the wire around one point in the notch.
6. Then, use the long excess to wrap around the next point and keep wrapping around until you get back to where you started, then cut any excess. *If you use wire, make sure it’s tightly wound and no sharp edges are pointing out to stab anyone.  Pliers help to get a good wind.  You can also stick the end into the stick itself.
7. Lay the skeleton of the kite onto your fabric and then trace around the edge, giving yourself an extra 1.5 inches or so to overlap and glue over the string.
8. Paint your message onto the fabric before you attach it to the string.
9. Once it is dry, place it upside down and the kite on top. Use your hot glue gun to squeeze out a line of glue on the inside of the wire and then carefully press the fabric over the wire with the glue.  You can use a piece of cardboard to press the fabric down onto the back to the fabric to avoid burning yourself.
10. You can add a back layer of fabric, too, in order to have messaging in both directions so it can be read from multiple angles in the march.
11. Add a strip of colourful fabric lined with bows onto the handle for the tail.

© Nahla Al Ageli

How To Make a Large Kite

The designs and guide below are from the guerrilla festival organised by artists and Cultural Workers Parents For Palestine Cultural Workers Against Genocide at the Barbican Centre, London.

Materials

• Thread
• Canvas material roughly 320cm by 400cm (see more below)
• Spray paint
• Pens
• Ribbon

Tools

• Sewing machine
• Scissors
• Thread
• Tape measure

Steps

1. The standard width for material in the UK is 160cm. In this case buy 160cm in width and 800 cms in length. Cut the material in two pieces of 400 cms and then use the sewing machine to make one large rectangle.
2. On Side A mark a centre point at 160cm
3. On Side B mark a point at 2/3ds of the way up at 250cm
4. Between these points mark the sides of the kite
5. Use the scissors to cut it out
6. With the spare material cut small triangles
7. Using the sewing machine to attach the triangles to the ribbon to complete the tail
8. Using the sewing machine attach the tail to the kite
9. Graffiti your message onto the kite

© Fiona Ferguson

Notes

^[1] If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself—
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale

(Alareer 2023)

Works cited

Alareer, Refaat. 2023. “If I must die.” https://ifimustdie.net/.