Building a Contemporary Palestine

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Building a Contemporary Palestine Issue No. 186, October 2013 Building a Contemporary Palestine In the Shadows of Contemporary Palestinian Art ................................................... 4 Fragments from a Troubled Mind ........................................................................... 10 Jericho Gate ........................................................................................................... 12 To be quite frank, I am not even sure what “contemporary” vis-à-vis Palestine means, or if there is a definitive definition for it, but what this edition attempts to do is meditate, My Town Is a City Now ........................................................................................... 16 document, contemplate, and, of course, dream of contemporary Palestine as a physical, Future Palestine ..................................................................................................... 24 mental, and emotional space. Contemporary Palestinian Literature ...................................................................... 28 In Search of Joy ...................................................................................................... 28 Our former content editor, Manar Harb, philosophically weighs in on what is The Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival ......................................................... 30 The Contemporary. Khaled Elayyan documents a very solid experimentation with The Future Is a Foreign Country ............................................................................ 34 contemporary dance through the annual contemporary dance festival. Majed Bamya Shaded by Earth ..................................................................................................... 38 uplifts our spirits as he contemplates a future Palestine, while Natasha Aruri examines urbanism and architecture in Ramallah, and Yazid Anani eloquently documents Combating Cancer at Al-Quds University ............................................................... 42 Palestinian contemporary art. Campus in Camps .................................................................................................. 46 The Urge to Recall Edward W. Said’s Thought Today ............................................ 52 Nadim Khoury takes us on a journey into the foreign land of future political discourse In the Limelight ....................................................................................................... 56 through a discussion with his students. And Tala Abu Rahmeh daringly proposes the Reviews .................................................................................................................. 62 need for the individual voice in Palestinian literature in a beautiful piece that has all the Events .................................................................................................................... 64 ingredients to spark a conversation. What makes this edition special is its contributors, Listings .................................................................................................................. 66-84 young intellectuals passionately working for a better Palestine. Their hands are Maps ...................................................................................................................... 85-97 engrossed with a future in the making. The Last Word ....................................................................................................... 98 To further accentuate our theme, we chose Farouk Shami for Personality of the Picturesque Palestine ............................................................................................ 99 Month. This is not only a story of success, it is the story of Palestine punctuated with cutting-edge science and technology. This is the Palestinian dream in all its glory. This edition is Palestine dressed in her most beautiful thobe, where art is exquisitely cross-stitched with culture woven together with science and technology and expertly threaded with stories of success, dreams, and hope. A very contemporary reading to you all! Telefax: +970/2-2 295 1262 Riyam Kafri AbuLaban e-mail: [email protected] Content Editor www.thisweekinpalestine.com www.facebook.com/ThisWeekInPalestine Printed by: Studio Alpha, Al-Ram, Jerusalem Binding by: Al-Ebda’, Al-Ram, Jerusalem Forthcoming Issues: Maps: Courtesy of PalMap - GSE Distribution in the West Bank: CityExpress Pilgrimage to Palestine – November 2013 Theme: Contemporary Palestine TWIP Turns 15! – December 2013 Cover photo: Farouk Shami is a Palestinian born businessman and founder of hair-care and cosmetics empire, Farouk Systems. Innovative Palestine – January 2014 Advisory Board Elias Anastas Riyam Kafri-AbuLaban Architect, Bethlehem Assistant professor of organic chemistry, Ramallah Omar Barghouti Raed Saade Human rights activist, Ramallah Activist and tourism expert, Jerusalem The views presented in the articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. Yasmeen El Khoudary Rawan Sharaf Maps herein have been prepared solely for the convenience of the reader; the designations and presentation Diwan Ghazza, Gaza Director of Al Hoash, Jerusalem of material do not imply any expression of opinion of This Week in Palestine, its publisher, editor, or its advisory board as to the legal status of any country, territory, city, or area, or the authorities thereof, or as to the delimitation of boundaries or national affiliation. 2 3 In the Shadows of Contemporary Palestinian Art By Yazid Anani “The ones who can call themselves and finances; rather it will suggest some contemporary are only those who do not rough divisions that help to categorise allow themselves to be blinded by the the “the political” in contemporary art lights of the century, and so manage to practices within the author’s familiar get a glimpse of the shadows in those knowledge and networks. These abstract lights, of their intimate obscurity.” Giorgio divisions do not suggest that artists are Agamben confined to only one of these categories With the death of the notion of in their practices rather than moving nationalism and the decay in the belief between them within the history of their art production. in democracy through parliamentary and Jumana Abboud, The Pomegranate, video 17:44 min, 2005. Originally commissioned by the 7th Sharjah Biennial. In The Pomegranate political representation; and with the calls Like every resistance movement, video, the seeds of the pomegranate are being meticulously placed back into the pomegranate’s emptied interior shell. The act of trying to return the seeds, one by one, into their niches is both obsessive and aggressive. The video work is a metaphor for memory/ for reform of the tainted nationalist Arab the PLO utilised arts for propaganda myth and consequence found in acts of “return” and “belonging”; questioning the futility, chaos and impossibility of such an ambition. regimes amidst the recent disconcerting purposes in an attempt to shape the upheavals in the Arab world, Palestinians consciousness of Palestinians and strive to build their national state communicate with the world a more and the right of Palestinians to be part how functionless and empty they have and shape its political and cultural humane form of resistance parallel to of the universal. Art projects from this become nowadays, as the liberation identity. This essay investigates how that of the combative militia discourse. category deal with the imagination of project has transformed into its post-Oslo contemporary art practices have dealt As much as resistance art of the 1970s the future state as an amalgamation of stature. These artists try to fracture the with the political shift from the liberation and 1980s was parallel in its values to nationalistic edifices and infrastructure inherited political symbols such as the movement to the post-Oslo schizophrenic the PLO ideology and the values of the such as in the work of Muhammad Abu Dome of the Rock, the olive tree, the reality. It investigates “the political” Palestinian liberation project, the first Sal, A Metro in Gaza, 2012. The work key of return, the map of Palestine, the in art practices between a persisting category comprises a good number of indeed imagines a different reality based Palestinian flag, and others, in order to Israeli colonialism, on one hand, and Palestinian artists who still follow the on the establishment of a transportation disclose new political possibilities of the a neoliberal postcolonial state-building tradition of supporting the ideology of the infrastructure (Metro Lines). The punch current tormented political conditions. project on the other. Nonetheless, the nationalist political regime. Their artworks line, as ironic as it can be to the spatial The deconstructionists consider that text will not explain the historical shifts support the equivocal postcolonial conditions of Gaza, can also be seen new political possibilities can never be in forms, styles, markets, aesthetics, ideology of post-Oslo state-building as a yearning to be part of the universal reached within the perpetual proliferation and the right to become “normal” like the and mundane use of these iconic cities of Paris, London, or Berlin. Most of symbols by the populous. A work such Muhammad Abu Sal, A Metro in Gaza, the artwork from this category envisages as Khalil Rabah’s Tattoo, 1997, is a installation and public project, 2012. Courtesy Muhammad Abu Sal, 2012. possible businesses, infrastructure, good example of this category,
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