A postcard for Gaza: Woc's art turns a gesture into solidarity art

Postcards from a city that no longer exists: Gaza. It is from this evocative and painful image that Postcard Lottery for Charity - Greetings from Gaza takes shape, the new project of the Turin-based artist Woc, who chooses to transform an everyday and now almost forgotten object, namely the postcard, into an artistic device capable of crossing geographic and temporal boundaries, but also individual and collective consciences. The initiative, presented in Turin on April 10, was born from an image of Gaza City dating back to when the city was still alive, intact, recognizable in its urban and social dimensions. This is the starting point for a project that moves on a double track: on the one hand the desire to denounce the horrors of war, and on the other the intention to offer concrete support to those working in defense of human rights. The entire proceeds will in fact be donated to Amnesty International Italy, in support of its activities.

The way to participate is simple but strongly symbolic. Starting Monday, April 13, and for one week, until April 19, it will be possible to purchase a postcard online, exclusively through shop.woc1.it, at a cost of 10 euros. The edition is limited to 200 copies, an element that helps reinforce the object’s value both as an artistic testimony and as a fundraising tool.

However, to reduce the project to a simple charity operation would be limiting. In fact, Postcard Lottery for Charity - Greetings from Gaza aspires to configure itself as a complex experience, in which the act of mailing becomes an integral part of the work itself. Each postcard is sent by regular mail, entrusted entirely to the unpredictability of the journey. There is no certain timeframe: it can arrive quickly or accumulate delays, cross several countries, collecting along the way stamps, signs, material traces of its passage.

This element of randomness and transformation directly recalls the tradition of Mail Art, an artistic practice that has found in postal circulation an autonomous means of expression, in which the value of the work lies not only in the final object, but in the process that accompanies it. In this sense, each postcard becomes a unicum, modified by the journey and the contingent conditions that mark its path.

The involvement of the public represents another central aspect of the project. Indeed, those who purchase the postcard are not merely spectators, but become part of a larger process. Each copy gives access to a lottery linked to the initiative, which raffles off the original work from which the project took shape: Gaza City, made with spray on paper, measuring 100 by 70 centimeters, dated 2025. The drawing will take place in the period between April 13 and 19, transforming the purchase into an experience that combines anticipation, possibility and shared participation.

The mechanism also introduces a reflection on contemporary collecting, which in this case moves away from the exclusive and static dimension and opens up to a narrative and participatory dynamic. It is not just about owning a work or object, but about being part of a story that develops over time and space, fueled by the individual paths of the postcards and the expectations of the participants.

Within the project, the postcard takes on a dual and layered meaning. On the one hand, it takes the form of an act of memory, capable of fixing and preserving the image of a city that is now largely destroyed. On the other hand, it becomes a silent but persistent form of denunciation, traveling from hand to hand, crossing borders and postal systems, and continuing to remind us of a reality that cannot be normalized or forgotten. The act of sending a postcard, an everyday and almost anachronistic gesture in the age of digital communication, is thus charged with political and cultural significance and becomes a way to keep attention alive, to create connections, and to oppose oblivion.

Supporting and disseminating the initiative is Le Grand Jeu, a Parisian bookstore internationally recognized as a benchmark for street art and urban culture. The participation of such an entity helps amplify the project’s reach, placing it within a cultural circuit attentive to contemporary artistic practices and their social implications.

Through an object as simple as a postcard, the project aims to build a network of meanings that connects individual memory and collective responsibility, aesthetics and politics, artistic gesture and concrete action. An invitation not to forget and not to remain indifferent, entrusted to a small fragment of paper capable of traversing the world.

A postcard for Gaza: Woc's art turns a gesture into solidarity art

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