You Should Be Here
LELIA PURKY (@mysticdolphin__perkylelia)
2025
Mixed media art on canvas
This piece, You Should Be Here, honors and remembers two boys from Gaza with cerebral palsy: Yazan Sharif Al-Kafarna, age 9, from Beit Hanoon, taken by systemic starvation (June 4, 2014-March 4, 2024), and Kareem Al-Madhoun, (09/12/2015- 11/02/2025) age 8, from Northern Gaza, who died of malnutrition after turning blue— his body giving out on him just before he and his family were due to go home to their house in the north during the second so-called “ceasefire”.
This work demands that their lives are remembered as the individuals that they were, not statistics or tragic props because of their disability. As we remember every non-disabled martyr, we must also not forget the disabled martyrs who become casualties of Zionist brutality. This piece not only commemorates Yazan and Kareem; it speaks to the fact that we must remember every disabled martyr;, genocide is a mass disabling event. You Should Be Here never forgets the lives lost to ableism and settler colonial violence. This piece with its layers of color and overlapping lines hold space for grief, rage, and memory. It also exposes the reality that this genocide that is still ongoing targets the most vulnerable first, who are often disabled people.
*This piece was featured in the art exhibition, Here the Birds’ Journey Begins, on April 26th, 2025.
“This piece is a call to remember the disabled martyrs too as we stand up against genocide and colonialism.”
My name is Lelia, and I am a disabled, queer artist from Evanston.
My passion for art began when I was a little girl, and it has become both my comfort and my form of resistance. I work primarily in abstract and mixed media, often incorporating found or repurposed materials to reflect resilience, memory, and survival.
As a disabled artist, I center disability pride and human rights in my work—especially Palestinian liberation and decolonial justice. I believe art is one of the most powerful ways to fight back against oppression. Through color, shape, and texture, I speak when the world tries to silence. When I’m not creating, I love to write and read stories that imagine freer futures.