Political Footnotes

As the apparatus of a state began to emerge, Jack Persekian also worked with the Palestinian Ministry of Culture where he set up a Visual Arts section and in 1996 organised ‘Among Artists’, a major exhibition in Ramallah of Palestinian work. Later that year he was appointed Director of International Relations and Projects and it was there he met Samar Martha who was to become the sixth founder member of Al-Ma’mal.

Although the situation on the ground changed very fast after Oslo, for a short period there were joint cultural projects between Palestinians and Israelis. In 1997 Anadiel was included in the the 'Mobile Seminar' project involving a group of 28 Palestinians and Israelis committed to the arts and to cultural co-operation projects in the wake of Oslo. The 'Mobile Seminar' was an intensive two day study and discussion tour in which the group travelled around the West Bank and Israel visiting key cultural centres.

For another project Anadiel hosted an exhibition on the theme of ‘Home’ featuring the work of Palestinian and Israeli artists. This exhibition was part of a wider project ‘Sharing Jerusalem’ in which the focus was the future of the city as the capital of two states. Israeli and Palestinian academics, intellectuals and activists held a series of symposia on the potential for the city’s shared future and organised special city walking tours. A second exhibition called ‘Down with the Occupation’ involving international as well as local artists was also part of the project. However, in an indication of where things were really heading, no gallery in West Jerusalem was willing to host it. The exhibition had to be held at the Al Wasiti Art Centre in East Jerusalem instead.

At this stage the search for venues, events and exhibition opportunities abroad intensified. Through contacts established by the gallery, Persekian discovered that the prospects of securing small amounts of financial assistance for art projects were higher if they had an international dimension. This discovery consolidated three core ideas: hosting foreign artists in Palestine, initiating exchange programs and placing Palestinian artists in residencies abroad. It was obvious that contacts with the international art scene and exposure to a huge variety of ideas and experiences could re-energize the young generation of Palestinian artists and provide fertile soil for jumpstarting the local art scene. Another factor motivating the gallery to involve international artists more deeply was the deteriorating situation on the ground:

As Jerusalem became more and more constricted, I felt this surging need to let the world in, so new blood could be injected into the local scene. The artists' interest in a dialogue with an environment, a situation, combined with my enthusiasm for a visual/conceptual discourse with the place, the people and the politics provided the ingredients for realising works addressing social, political and humanistic issues from firsthand experience. (Interview, 2005)