Something is Missing

By 1997, Anadiel Gallery had become the only Palestinian venue that exhibited and hosted artist projects and residencies, and promoted international exchanges. Throughout 1997 it held many groundbreaking shows including ‘Something is Missing’ by French artist Jean-Marc Bustamante. The installation was composed of five locally made metal sculptures of various heights that functioned as birdcages, each containing a live bird. Bustamante’s objective was to mark out a territory, which was at once a prison and a vital space in which movement was constrained but not entirely forbidden. 

Because Anadiel was a private initiative it did not qualify for significant funding from international organizations. Yet it was already serving a crucial function and an expansion of its capabilities and resources was imperative on several different levels. First it was becoming increasingly urgent to open up to artists from all over the world, provide them with the means and resources to visit Jerusalem and produce works that were in dialogue with the place and time.

Secondly, experiences with all the artists and the work they produced, clearly showed the benefits of a creative approach, especially in terms of assessing and expressing the self in relation to the wider dysfunctional environment. These observations underlined the need for Anadiel to develop some kind of educational capacity whereby artists could interact directly with the local community and provide creative skills, especially to young and vulnerable people. However, Anadiel had access to neither the physical resources nor the funds for this kind of a programme.

Realising that change was vital in order to move forward, the decision to establish the Al Ma’mal Foundation was made. Its main aim was to instigate, disseminate and make art in Palestine. They envisioned Al Ma’mal as a catalyst for the realization of art projects with local and visiting artists and believed that their knowledge and skills could be extended further into the community. At the same time there needed to be a mechanism for consolidating the network that had grown from Anadiel and using it to both organise, and provide information about cultural activities in Palestine.

Art is a significant and essential component of both collective and individual identity. We thus believe that a healthy productive society must nurture the creative forces within it and provide its members with opportunities to participate in art and cultural events. Although the creation of an indigenous culture is of vast importance, isolationism and parochialism must be avoided. Hence, in addition to the promulgation of proponents of the local culture we place great emphasis on exposure to international artistic trends. (Al-Ma'mal Statement)

(Photos by Issa Freij)