This editorial on the political use of copyright in public art was originally published in my street art newsletter, Beyond the Walls, which lands in inboxes on the 1st of every month with reflections and unexpected finds. This excerpt is from the November 1st, 2025, edition. Subscribe here to receive future issues.
The Legal and Poetic Action of Collettivo FX in Palestine
In early 2025, the Italian collective Collettivo FX created the street art piece Albero d’Ulivo (Olive Tree) in a Palestinian village in the West Bank. Painted on a building placed under demolition order by the Israeli authorities, the mural spans roughly six by seven metres.
The project began with an idea by Cosimo Pederzoli, an activist from Reggio Emilia who had spent several months in Twani, a village in Masafer Yatta. He wanted to create a mural with the local youth as a way to spark a story for a documentary about their daily lives.
At first, I was quite skeptical. I know very well that a mural on its own can do very little, especially in a place as complex as the West Bank. I went there more out of personal curiosity, to understand the situation, rather than with a clear plan to paint.
When we arrived, Cosimo explained my work to the group, showing some of my murals. It was actually the Youth of Sumud who suggested painting the guesthouse, a building that had just received a demolition order.
They had a clear reason. In the West Bank, there is no Palestinian army or police, so people have no real protection. Their only safeguard is international visibility — when the media talk about them, that attention becomes a form of shield. A grey wall draws no attention, but a large, figurative mural painted by an international artist does.
During the design phase, two options emerged: a mural of protest, directly describing their situation, or a symbolic image representing their identity. They chose the latter. The olive tree, for them, is a powerful symbol — it represents the Palestinian land and is also the first thing settlers destroy. We focused on that image, giving it a human dimension to express the bond between people and their land.
Simone Ferrarini, Collettivo FX
According to Italian copyright law, and in line with international conventions, Collettivo FX is the legal holder of both the moral and economic rights of their work. Based in Reggio Emilia, Collettivo FX has long been known for its socially and politically engaged street art. In this case, the collective used copyright itself as a tool of resistance, transforming ephemerality into a statement of rights by giving the mural a legal identity. Its moral and economic rights belong to the artists, who have chosen to share them, through a notarised deed, with schools, foundations, museums, associations, and private citizens.
Sharing Rights to Multiply Resistance
Moral rights protect the integrity of an artwork, preventing its destruction or modification without the author’s consent, while economic rights regulate its reproduction, distribution and commercial use. Instead of keeping these rights exclusively, Collettivo FX chose to share them with multiple owners, believing that more rights could be invoked against the demolition.
Through a notarised deed, the artists transferred both moral and economic rights to a network of institutions including schools, associations, foundations, museums, and private citizens. The work therefore ceased to belong to a single author or collective and became a shared property, a collective good protected by a plurality of subjects. This diffusion of ownership strengthens the monitoring and protection of the artwork, which is now legally defended not by one individual but by a community of co-owners.
The cession was carried out in accordance with the law and included a symbolic donation to Youth of Sumud, a non-violent movement active in Masafer Yatta. The idea is both simple and radical: “The more owners, the more rights to defend it from demolition.” By multiplying ownership, the artists multiplied the legal voices capable of opposing the destruction of the building, turning what might have been an administrative act into a cultural and ethical question.
The idea of using copyright had been developing for some time within Collettivo FX, in collaboration with lawyers, curators, and other experts. It stems from a positive aspect of Italian law, which strongly protects the author’s rights over the creative part of an artwork.
We decided to apply this principle to Albero d’Ulivo for two reasons. First, the project had begun as a way to support local youth who had lost their income and stability. By linking the cession of copyright to donations, anyone who contributed to Youth of Sumud received a share of the artwork’s rights. The response was immediate: more than half of the work was shared in a short time.
The second reason was legal. With the help of lawyer Elisa Vigneri, each transfer was made legally valid, giving every co-owner a certificate with real legal and economic value. This meant that the mural was no longer protected by one owner but by many. Today, there are around seventy-five co-owners, each able to contact the Italian Embassy to assert their rights. This collective ownership gives the mural — and the building that holds it — a new legal and symbolic weight.
Simone Ferrarini, Collettivo FX
By turning copyright, normally a mechanism of private protection, into a means of collective resistance, Collettivo FX redefined both the function of law and the meaning of authorship. Each new co-owner can invoke the right to preserve the integrity of the work, transforming the demolition of a building into a potential act against cultural heritage. Street art, in this case, steps beyond the visual realm to inhabit the legal and political space, becoming an act of shared responsibility.
Street Art as Civic Practice
Albero d’Ulivo is a site-specific intervention that transforms a wall painting into a legal instrument, shifting the work from image to action, from representation to collective defence. By inviting others to become co-owners of a wall that wants to resist, the project symbolically breaks the wall of indifference, transforming participation into protection.
We hear about Palestine almost every day, yet it is rare to find a clear account of what is really happening there, especially in the West Bank. This is a Palestinian territory fragmented by Israeli settlements, new villages built to control areas the Israeli government deems dangerous. These are justified as “security measures,” but in practice they expand Israeli presence on Palestinian land.
Life inside the settlements is harsh. People live in the desert, cultivating arid soil inside fenced compounds, constantly guarded by soldiers and surrounded by hostility. Many are religious extremists or people driven by ideological convictions, willing to live under extreme conditions. The local population, meanwhile, faces settlers who act with aggression and impunity, protected by the Israeli army.
This reality is rarely told, yet it is central to understanding the conflict. That is why the documentary “Under Demolition Order” by Giuseppe Raia, which follows the creation of our mural and what we witnessed there, is so important. It helps break a wall of silence that stems from ignorance — a paradox, since Palestine is constantly mentioned in the news but almost never truly explained.
Simone Ferrarini, Collettivo FX
To “cede” is not to renounce, but to multiply: to multiply ownership, voices and possibilities of defence. Through this gesture, Collettivo FX reclaims the bureaucratic language of law, turning intellectual property into an act of international solidarity.
What will happen to The Olive Tree?
Fast forward to the present: the appeal filed by Youth of Sumud against the demolition has been definitively rejected, and the Israeli Court of Justice has ruled that the building (and therefore the mural) will be demolished. In response, and to reinforce the diplomatic action accompanying the legal one, Collettivo FX invited all co-owners to assert their copyright and to call on the Italian Embassy in Tel Aviv to intervene.
In the past few days, many of the co-owners — the people who have acquired shares of the copyright, and new ones are still joining — have been sending formal requests to the Italian Embassy. We are now waiting for a response, although we know that institutional procedures take time, so it will not happen immediately. For now, what matters is that many of the co-owners have accepted our invitation to assert their rights through the embassy, and that collective action is already underway.
Simone Ferrarini, Collettivo FX
The initiative seeks to extend the defence of the artwork beyond the courtroom, turning the collective ownership of Albero d’Ulivo into a transnational act of cultural and civic advocacy.
What I hope will remain from this whole experience, first of all, is the guesthouse itself. I know it sounds utopian, but I have to keep hoping, and in some way, I truly do. Not so much because of the mural, but because, through the documentary and the whole discussion that began with the issue of copyright, I can see that a very strong part of the international community is starting to move. The cultural world is responding — people like you, journalists and writers — who have understood both the urgency and the importance of a cultural action. That gives me hope, and I need to hold on to that hope.
Secondly, I hope that what remains is also a method, a way of working. I hope culture can truly have an active role in certain situations, not just a representational one. The issue of Palestine should not exist only as a subject to be depicted on a wall, a canvas, or a stage — even though that is valuable and important, because there is a real lack of information — but it should also become a form of activism on the ground. Culture should be able to collaborate with local realities, to intervene in legal and political contexts, and to hold power there. I believe that, in this case, the role of culture goes beyond the artwork itself. It becomes the process that the artwork can generate, through collaboration and through its ability to enter the very heart of political and legal questions.
Simone Ferrarini, Collettivo FX
