‘How Kids Roll’: The children of Gaza and their message of peace

By Martina Accettola

There are places where childhood does not simply unfold: it endures. In Gaza, amid rubble and expectations that have been placed on hold, children continue to imagine a possible future, suspended between normality and trauma.

The result of his tension is beautifully illustrated in the exhibition How Kids Roll, showing at Rome’s Palazzo Merulana from 14 May to 28 June 2026, curated by Loris Lai and Joseph Lefevre and produced by B-Roll Production and Ramon Pictures

Here, the gaze of the children of Gaza becomes testimony and memory, but also an appeal to be heard. Supported by the Dicastery for Communication and the Dicastery for Culture and Education, and with Vatican News and Vatican Radio as media partners, the exhibition seeks to restore dignity and imagination to children growing up amid a conflict that continues to redefine daily life. Yet, as Loris Lai recalled, “We speak about Gaza, but the message is universal. Children are everywhere.”

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“Every war is a war against children”: this is the principle guiding the commitment of UNICEF and Save the Children, both of which supported the exhibition’s realisation. Both charities reveal that their support stems from a desire to present How Kids Roll as a means of raising awareness about the condition of children in Gaza and of building on its potential to bridge divides by conveying a universal message of peace, listening, and humanity.

As Andrea Iacomini, spokesperson for UNICEF, and Elena Gentili, spokesperson for Save the Children, noted, children are too often victims of realities they did not choose to endure.

Through the eyes of children

The project develops from the photographic work of Melissa McClaren, created during the filming of the 2024 movie How Kids Roll by Loris Lai, set in the Gaza Strip during the Second Intifada.

Her images portray the daily lives of Gaza’s children without ever yielding to the spectacle of suffering. What emerges is not the extraordinariness of war, but the strength of life within a fragile context.

A mosaic of precarious normality unfolds before the eyes of visitors. It is permeated by the message of hope shared by both the film and the exhibition: the ability of children to continue imagining the future even when the future itself seems denied.

“From the very beginning we did not want to be rhetorical or sentimental. We wanted to illustrate reality,” the director told Vatican media. “This is the truth of children: how they relate to one another, what their dreams are, and how they even suppress their emotions because they must face a reality far greater than themselves.”

Childhood thus becomes a lens through which to interpret the present.

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The exhibition design amplifies this emotional tension, transforming the venue’s central hall into an immersive and silent space.

Six lightboxes form a visual corridor guiding visitors slowly through the experience, while photographs displayed in varying formats alternate between impact and intimacy, creating a continuous dialogue between individual experience and the collective dimension.

Everything contributes to creating an environment in which human dignity is at the centre of public attention.

A plurality of voices

Alongside the images are poems written by children in Gaza from 7 October to the present day, forming a second narrative voice: direct, fragile and immediate. The words do not explain the photographs; rather, they accompany and amplify them, creating a polyphony that opens further spaces of memory, fear and longing.

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Added to these are the photographs of Mahmoud El Shawwa, a collaborator on the film, documenting from within the reality experienced in Gaza from the beginning of the conflict until today, further layering the exhibition’s visual narrative.

The audiovisual dimension also plays a central role. Dreamlike sequences from the film, projected on four screens, interrupt and give depth to the photographic journey, bringing to the surface children’s fears, imagination and desires. The discreet yet constant soundscape, curated by Maurizio Cascella, accompanies visitors and helps create a unified sensory environment.

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Completing the project are the paintings of Simone Legno, also known as Tokidoki, inspired by the film and accompanied by a video performance showing the artist at work.

His contribution introduces a more symbolic and stylised visual language, one that does not interrupt the exhibition path but intensifies its emotional resonance.

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This is not merely an exhibition of images, but an epic environment — in the Brechtian sense — created to awaken attention and listening.

“It is very difficult to remain detached when reality is placed before your eyes,” Loris Lai explained, “especially when that reality is in the eyes of a child, eyes that look at you and communicate, even unknowingly, everything they carry within. You find yourself before living beings, children who have no choice.”

How Kids Roll does not simply portray a condition; it questions the very way in which that condition is observed, doing so through the lens of childhood.

One question accompanies visitors until the moment they leave: What does it mean to grow up when the future is constantly being called into question?