In the spring of 2024, students started pitching tents on university lawns.
It began at Columbia and spread — across the United States, Canada, the UK, and Europe. The demands were consistent wherever the tents went up: a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, and for universities to divest from companies tied to the war.
Why a varsity hoodie
The collegiate hoodie is the most institutional garment there is. Block lettering, school colours, a century of tradition behind it. You wear it to say I belong to this place.
So there's something in taking that exact object and putting GAZA across the chest where the university's name goes. The students on those lawns were, in effect, telling their institutions what they wanted them to stand for. The hoodie does the same thing.
The design
Distressed collegiate lettering — GAZA in block type, PALESTINE as a smaller mark beneath. The wear on the print is intentional: it's meant to look like something that has been slept in, marched in, and kept.
Why it's in the Archive
Whatever anyone thinks of the encampments, they were a real moment, with a date and a location and a lot of young people who decided that not saying anything was worse than the consequences of saying something.
This is the piece that marks it.
Student Intifada comes as a varsity hoodie. 10% of every order goes to help orphans in Gaza.
