Culture and Arts Programme

During the reporting period, the first phase of the Culture, Arts and Community Participation project was implemented with funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). This phase provided a rich experience for the CAP and for various partners. The CAP also launched the Visual Arts: A Flourishing Field (VAFF) project with funding from the Consulate General of Sweden through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). Aspiring for a more vital and sustainable scene of visual arts in Palestine, the VAFF empowers relevant active institutions to build and develop their capacities, programmes and resources. The project also helps these institutions to upgrade their visions and modes of operation. It collaborates with a broader sector of artists and partners and, by consequence, ensures a broad audience of visual arts.

The CAP has looked for local communities that are involved more in identifying and devising solutions for respective problems through artistic and cultural interventions. To this end, the CAP joined forces with the AMQF Educational Research and Development Programme to implement the first phase of the Culture, Arts and Community Participation project. Covering a renewable period of three years, the project is co-funded by the SDC. In the context of this project, the CAP offered four grants to implement four different projects, which were selected from among 126 projects submitted for the grant. In a longstanding process, the Programme engaged with beneficiaries to develop and launch projects in respective areas. Beneficiaries included Yes Theatre (Hebron) in Dura, south of Hebron; Ashtar Theatre (Ramallah) in the Jordan Valley, Jericho; Dar Qandeel For Arts and Culture (Tulkarem), Tulkarem; and Society of University Graduates (Gaza) in the Gaza Strip.

The VAFF project was launched to add a substantial goal to CAP operations over the upcoming four years: To make the visual art scene more lively and more capable of sustainability. During the project lifespan, the CAP will offer grants to visual art collectives as well as to academic institutions with a focus on visual art education programmes. Grants cover two rounds, each extending for almost two years. It is expected that seven to nine institutions will benefit from the project grants in each round. Grants will cover basic operating expenses, institutional capacity building, administrative and financial regulations, technical resources and programme-related expenditures.

The CAP offered 20 new scholarships to students of music, performing arts or other closely related fields. These included 13 scholarships in music and four in theatre and dancing that helped students pursue their education at various institutes and universities around the world. The CAP also offered three scholarships in other art fields. Five students earned BA and MA degrees with support from the CAP. Most of the graduates have worked in their respective fields, produced their own new art projects and/or participated in a variety of art projects.

In cooperation with its partners, the CAP continued to offer a variety of artist residency opportunities to visual and performing artists. These included residencies at the Cité Internationale des Arts (International City of Arts), Paris, UNIDEE - University of Ideas, the formative residential programme developed by Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto, Italy, and Tunis. A total of 10 artists joined various artist residency programmes.

The CAP played a major role in developing and implementing three focused training programmes. Two training events on visual arts and theatre were organised in Gaza in partnership with Eltiqa Group and Basma Society for Culture and Arts respectively. A third training workshop on writing about pictures brought together almost 50 male and female young artists, writers and others interested in improving their skills and expertise. A total 217 young, new and dedicated artists participated in new projects. These included 66 female artists.

In addition, the CAP continued to support the culture and art scene in Palestine, promote Palestine’s visibility abroad, and empower more artists to enhance their expertise and skills by providing opportunities for education, training, artist residencies or by involvement in new art productions. Along this vein, the CAP offered a variety of grants and organised different interventions and events.

The CAP facilitated the engagement of artists in new, outstanding cultural or knowledge-based productions led or supported by the AMQF, furnishing an opportunity for artists to make a living partially or wholly by working in the cultural field. To this avail, the CAP supported 26 new performing and visual art projects. Informed by quality and professional criteria, specialist juries chose these from among dozens of other projects. Selections were made within the framework of the Qattan Grant for Performing Arts and Selat: Links through the Arts in partnership with the Prince Claus Fund, YAYA 2016 and seasonal grants. All these allowed an opportunity to dozens of artists to engage in projects. For their work in these projects, a large number of artists were paid for participating in production processes, performances, etc. A number of the projects also allowed some young artists to take part in training and capacity building programmes, which helped to improve their skills and expertise and secure a livelihood of future engagement in the art field.

Another noteworthy event was the Writing about Pictures course, which could provide an inspiring model in terms of its organisation, funding and implementation. Led by the AMQF, five institutions have joined forces to bring this course into reality. It has formed an interface of many tracks in visual arts and various practices from around the world. Participants managed to reflect on visual art practices in the Palestinian context as well as its relation with different contexts.

As a result, eight texts that revolved around, or were inspired by, art works and practices were produced in the context of the Qalandiya International Festival 2016. These contributions were published in the Cultural Supplement of Al-Ayyam newspaper. They will also be posted on Ibraaz(http://www.ibraaz.org/), paving the way for Ibraaz to shift to publishing texts in Arabic. 

The CAP seeks to build a broader and more diverse audience of Palestinian culture both locally and internationally, through programmes supported by the AMQF. In this context, the CAP continued to support a number of significant art festivals, which were of good quality, maintained large-scale public participation and covered various areas in Palestine. The Programme supported nine international and local festivals of various arts, including contemporary dance, music, theatre, cinema and folklore. Organised in many Palestinian cities and towns, these festivals attracted dozens of thousands of interested people of different age groups and from across the spectrum. Through its seasonal grants, the CAP also supported 29 art projects and events in literature, visual arts, performing arts and training in different areas. Additionally, the CAP supported 10 participations of Palestinian individuals or bands in international culture and art events, contributing to creating a wider audience of Palestinian culture abroad. More than 92,570 people attended over 307 local events organised with support from the CAP in Jenin, Ramallah, Beit Jala, Bir Zeit, Anabta, Beit Anan, Jerusalem, Haifa, Shafa Amr, Majdal Shams, Galilee, Bethlehem, Hebron, Jericho, Nablus and Gaza. An audience of 24,026 people attended events organised outside Palestine with support from the CAP, including Badke performances, in France, Scotland, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Portugal, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Lithuania, Tunisia and USA.