Thuraya Al-Baqsami (b. 1951 in Kuwait City; lives in Kuwait City) is an artist, writer, illustrator, and activist whose work engages with histories of the Gulf and the poetics and politics of femininity. In 1973 she created a series of posters for the Kuwaiti Student Union delegation’s trip to East Berlin for the 10th World Festival of Youth and Students, a gathering of thousands of youths joined in the struggle for peace, solidarity against imperialism, and friendship. Programmed into the gathering was a visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp, debates on strategies for combating imperialism, a forum on the role of women in this struggle, solidarity parades, and a tribunal led by Angela Davis that charged imperialism with crimes against its global victims. Al-Baqsami’s poster features a dove alongside two abaya-clad women and a demand for the release of all political prisoners in Chile.
