The preparation stage of the project was to have taken a month, but ended up lasting more than three months and a half, due to the encirclement of Palestinian towns and villages, which made reaching the families of each Shaheed almost impossible. In addition to the siege, the grief of the families made the personal information collection more arduous. This part of the preparation work was the most time consuming of the process, as new information, stories, and anecdotes were constantly sought out, gathered, added, verified for consistency and accuracy, edited, translated, etc.. Yet, there still remains Shuhada whose biographical information remains brief. We hope to complete it at a later stage, as this is a work in progress.

After the objects were gathered and sorted, artist Samir Salameh was asked to fuse the diverse guiding design concepts into a unified design for the exhibit. In a course of a mere two weeks of intensive and hard work, he was remarkably successful in developing this design: He used unobtrusive and individualized translucent plastic display cases for each object. Above each one floats a transparent sheet of paper bearing the name, and black and white photograph of the Shaheed. To emphasize the value of the objects displayed, he carefully wrapped them inside the display boxes, tying them with a ribbon of twine. The diffuse light with which he bathed the exhibit rooms, gives the memorial a quiet wholeness.

At the same time, artist Sharif Waked graciously conceptualized the catalogue's design, whereby each Shaheed was allocated two pages, between them a transparent page covering the Shaheed's face, echoing the exhibit's display cases. To deal with the multiplicity of colors of the personal objects and photographs, photographer Isabel de la Cruz decided to photograph the objects in sepia, which subsequently was chosen as the unifying color of the catalogue. She also pre-selected the objects displayed from the many objects each family provided for the memorial, and curator Samir Salameh made the final selection.

The rest of the catalogue design was reviewed at each stage so that it would be as minimalist as possible, so that everything in it would be subsumed before the 100 lives. When the memorial exhibit reached Bahrain, Khaled Jumaan, director of Miracle Graphics Co. there, graciously designed the exhibit’s poster and card, which have been used ever since.

The memorial exhibit opened in Ramallah at the Sakakini on February 20th, 2001, and met with great popular interest which led to its extension, in addition to receiving wide positive media coverage locally and internationally. A special visiting day was set aside for the families of the Shuhada. Out of six other Palestinian cities due to host the memorial exhibit, only Nablus and Nazareth have been able to so far, in addition to six Arab cities and capitals.

Lastly, we hope this symbolic, subjective, and artistic memorial can spark other forms of remembrance and tribute, to all those who have lost their lives in the quest for freedom. When the Aqsa Intifada ends, we will work towards its enlargement to include the remaining Shuhada, and to install it in a permanent locale, serving as an enduring tribute to the fallen.