This intervention is designed to further develop the knowledge, tools and skills of artists and researchers in the Gaza Strip, and to widen discussion about, among other topics, the ways that artistic production works, and how it progresses in times of war, along with the development of new technologies and the dependence of artistic production on funding.
This intervention was designed and organised by the artist and curator Alaa Younis. The curator invites a guest artist to participate in each encounter through Skype, and the group prepares by reading a text or watching a film that has been suggested by the curator and the guest artist. This is followed by discussion on the themes in the text or the film, tying them to local artistic practices.
The discussion produces a wide spectrum of perspectives, helping towards an understanding of the cultural and artistic scene and imagining what kind of work can be developed in it. The participants view films and discuss texts that are circulating in the contemporary art world, and analyse them in relation to their views and practices, on the one hand, and with the art scene in Gaza in terms of its formation and limitations, on the other.
This programme began in December 2018 and continues with fortnightly meetings until April 2019. The programme organises eight encounters held in Arabic, with thirteen artists and researchers. These encounters are hosted by the art collective Shababeek for Contemporary art in Gaza.
The encounters are listed below:
The First Encounter
Date: December 2018
Guest: Ali Hussein al-Adawi, Egyptian writer and film producer
Discussion Material: Inextinguishable Fire (1969), by the Egyptian director Haroun Farocki.
Discussion Focus: Haroun Farocki’s film was discussed as a turning point in the production of films that are politically committed, or which deal with causes or choose an unusual path in the general context of producing films with a message. The participants discussed the ways in which the film employed the violent imagery of war, and the relationship that arms companies have with the construction of this picture, as well as the position of the artists and directors in the production processes.
The Second Encounter
Date: December 2018
Guest: Raed Ibrahim, Palestinian/Jordanian artist
Discussion Materials: A text by Felix Gonzalez-Torres (translated into Arabic) and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s film The Paper Flower Sequence (1969).
Discussion Focus: Discussions of the position of artists writing texts and receiving funds, and their awareness of their position in the divisions of cultural labour.
The Third Encounter
Date: January 2019
Guest: Adania Shibli, Palestinian writer and researcher
Discussion Materials: “Clues: Morelli, Freud and Sherlock Holmes” from the works of Carlo Ginzburg (translated by Arij Batta). (A special thanks to the Asfar group, who translated the script voluntarily.)
Discussion Focus: The means by which people see the world and how knowledge is changed by being marginalised, and how small details can be reread to redefine narratives, artworks, or history as a whole. Shibli also presented European artworks that demonstrate transformations in how we deal with the different elements of a painting.
The Fourth Encounter
Date: January 2019
Guest: Khaled Hourani, Palestinian artist
Discussion Materials: A new literary work by Hourani entitled “Oil on Canvas: The story of the search for Jamal al-Mahamel”
Discussion Focus: The Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour’s painting Jamal al-Mahamel and the importance this work has acquired as part of an artistic movement and practices documenting political, artistic and economic developments and events, both in the Palestinian scene and outside.
The Fifth Encounter
Date: February 2019
Guest: Reema Salha Fadda
Discussion material: Symbolic (Dis)possession: On Jerusalem, Tupac, and the False Promise of a Virtuous Reality by Reema Salha Fadda
Topic: Reflecting on the centrality of producing images that intersect with technology, and how we imagine, re-imagine or protect our cities, their symbols, and the political and historical heritage from material and symbolic violence.
The Sixth Encounter
Date: 2 March, 2019
Guest: Tarek Abou El Fetouh
Discussion material: The Time is Out of Joint exhibition (2016) and Rituals of Signs and Metamorphosis exhibition; The Power of the Archive and its Limits chapter in Refiguring the Archive by Achille Mbembe.
Discussion topic: How to curate exhibitions and experiment with choosing ideas and artist projects; how can artists benefit from artistic approaches and subjects; the notion of telepathy; the experience of expanding artist selection to include distant countries in both exhibitions.
The Seventh Encounter
Date: 16 March 2019
Guest: Salim Albeik
Discussion material: The Battleship Potemkin (1925) by Sergei Eisenstein and Cinema in the Revolution: Sergei Eisenstein and the Art of Montage by Salim Albeik.
Discussion topic: Image and music in cinema, taking Sergeo Eisenstein’s film The Battleship Potemkin as an example of a political propaganda or a politically committed film; what the other sees in this kind of propaganda films, as well as projecting it onto what is happening in the Arab world. The film depicts a revolution that took place in 1905, and failed, even though it paved the way for the 1917 revolution.
The Eighth Encounter
Date: 23 March 2019
Guest: Nura Akkawi and Achille Mbembe
Discussion material: An excerpt of the Refiguring the Archive project
Discussion topic: How to understand architecture as an archive; the impact of digital and personal archives (such as phone images, etc.) on building collective archives; the objectives of historians who concealed certain parts of the archive and history.
Biography of the curator:
Ala Younis is an artist, curator and publisher, whose work investigates archives, film remains and artistic practices. Her projects have been shown at the Venice, Istanbul and Gwangju Biennials, at the New Museum in New York, the Institut du Monde Arabe (Paris), Darat al Funun (Amman), and the Contemporary Image Collective (Cairo), amongst other venues. She has curated several shows and film programmes, as well as Kuwait's first national pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2013 and the project ‘Museum of Manufactured Response to Absence’.