In Memory of Amna Hussein
In 2024, Art to Heart lost one of its most quietly powerful artists. Amna Hussein passed away due to complications following COVID-19, which had taken a severe toll on her lungs — lungs already weakened by the scoliosis she had lived with since birth.
Her absence leaves a real gap.
Amna was a Palestinian painter from Beit Doqqu, a village on the outskirts of Jerusalem. She worked with Art to Heart as a freelance artist, and her contribution was significant. Her paintings were sharp and rooted to the earth — the kind of work that does not ask for your sympathy but demands your attention. They captured the weight of living as a disabled woman under occupation, holding both personal truth and collective experience on the same canvas.
Among her work, she was commissioned by Art to Heart to create a series of paintings for the Accused performance — works that looked at disability through a social model lens, refusing pity, refusing passivity.
As she once said: "Living with a disability is undeniably challenging in any country, but the difficulties are compounded when you live in an occupied country, and for women, it becomes even more arduous."
Her creativity did not stop at the canvas. Amna used to walk the valleys and plains around Beit Doqqu, gathering wildflowers, drying them, and turning them into bracelets, necklaces, medals, and keychains - each piece carrying the history and story of the land in its petals. It was a practice as political as it was beautiful.
In her honor, Art to Heart named its 2024 inclusive summer club after her: The Amneh Hussein Inclusive Summer Club.
We are building an inclusive Palestine where art serves as a powerful language beyond words, empowering persons with disabilities to create, connect, and contribute with dignity and justice alongside everyone else.
