Far from Gaza is a twofold project of documentary filmmaking and interdisciplinary research. The study takes an arts-based research approach of creating artwork to develop a theory, using empirical results for art creation and using insights from artmaking in the analysis. The project examines and marks a unique socio-political phenomenon from an aural-spatial perspective regarding the ongoing pro-Palestinian protests globally, with a case study of Denmark. Using acoustic methodology and audiovisual ethnographic methods, we defined this phenomenon as “collective echoing” —the resonance of global dissent in a region far off from the conflict in Gaza. The central question was how collective echoing occurs and why is it important for future global social movements, leading us to examine the sociopsychological processes, aural-spatial tactics, and media representation strategies involved in these protests. The sound here acted both as a method and object of study using the framework of “critical listening”. Employing qualitative methodologies of data collection, the research included semi-structured interviews with six activists and collective leaders, participatory observation, and field recordings of protests in the four largest cities in Denmark: Copenhagen, Aarhus, Odense, and Aalborg. Meanwhile, the film, divided into three parts—“Hearing,” “Listening,” and “Echoing”, explores the indifferent nature of carceral state apparatuses across the globe to collective echoing, oral testimonies of protestors, and echoing voices of resistance, respectively. The documentary acts as an artistic imagination of the research undertaken for the collective echoing phenomenon. Furthermore, it looks for alternative ways of presenting historically invisibilized protest narratives to the public, which have long been discussed under the discourse of the protest paradigm. Examining this phenomenon using sonic inquiry, the project created innovative scholarship about an ongoing conflict and contributed to disciplines of protest studies, critical media cultures, documentary filmmaking, and sound studies.

Work by Camila Flores Fernandez and Harshit Singh

Conference Paper: (Forthcoming), Fernandez, C. and Singh, H. ‘Sounds and Echoes of Protests distant from Conflict: Arts-based Research and Documentary “Far from Gaza”’, XXIV International Image Festival, 2025, XXI International Academic Forum on Design and Creation - Media Art History, RE:GENERATIVE, Colombia, 2025

Conference Presentation: Fernandez, C. and Singh, H. ‘Far From Gaza’, The Global Movement in Solidarity with Palestine and Its Repression, Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS), Italy, 2024

Conference Presentation: Fernandez, C. and Singh, H. ‘Sounds and Echoes of Protests distant from Conflict: Arts-based Research and Documentary “Far from Gaza”’, XXIV International Image Festival, 2025, XXI International Academic Forum on Design and Creation - Media Art History, RE:GENERATIVE, Colombia, 2025