Al-Ma'mal Retrospective

Better late than never...

2010-11-27T19:05:00.000+02:00

Rigo 23 finished the Al Ma'mal mural about an hour or so before he had to leave for the airport and I left the following day so never got a chance to take pictures of the final work. However, I now have a few images of how it all looked in the end so better late than never here is Back and Forth from Ramallah to Jerusalem..

And Finally..

2010-10-12T11:35:00.002+02:00

THANK YOU

VERY MUCH

Artists at Al Ma'mal II - Issa Freij

2010-10-12T11:13:00.000+02:00

Issa Freij has always been a part of Anadiel and Al Ma’mal’s story. He has filmed and photographed exhibitions, people and events prolifically and continues to do so. In this Jerusalem Show he videoed most of the performances and also interviewed some of the artists and community centres. His photograph and video archive is probably so huge by now that it would take several years to get an idea of what it contains. It is not just a record of events but a consistent and ongoing record of the people, the places and the culture.

One of his projects in Al Ma'mal is a sequence of images taken during the last 30 years which have been re-arranged to create a new timeline. Moving from left to right, the timeline is reversed, and yet still seems just as familiar and logical in its new arrangement.

His other work at Al Ma’mal also merges the past and the present but all within a single scene he captured at a demonstration in Jerusalem. This complex image has three layers:

One layer depicts or represents the marching populace, angry, frustrated, tired yet resilient. The second layer depicts Jerusalem’s iconic monument, the Dome of the Rock, printed on a stretched banner carried by the marching crowd, and right across it a screaming slogan in the colour of the Hizbullah flag imploring Arabs for help - quite painful don't you agree? The third layer is a number of smaller images adorning the bottom of the banner carried by the crowd and resembling medals of honour for "typical" calamities that have plagued and burdened our sorry history (Mohammad al Durra and other martyrs). All of this is portrayed against a very normal background of a cloudy day, an evergreen and a Marlboro sign, which is telling us in a way: c'est la vie and too bad you happen to be who you are, on the wrong side of the fence so to speak. And the picture with all its elements represents life, a mirror of our culture and people, and a tool of expression that rises above all prejudices, pedantry and parochialism. (Text from Jerusalem Show Catalogue)

It seems appropriate to end on this image because it was the original choice for this year's Jerusalem Show poster. Concerns about the risks of it being perceived as too provocative, eventually gave way to another poster design but not before an intense email exchange among the Al Ma'mal board. The final poster for the Jerusalem Show ingeniously referenced the original choice by using cut-up extracts of text from these email exchanges.

Artists and work at Al Ma'mal I

2010-10-12T10:39:00.000+02:00

Al Ma'mal is the place it all began so it seems only right that the documentation of work in this year's Jerusalem Show should end at Al Ma'mal as well. Six artists are showing in the Al Ma'mal space. The story of one of these, Anonymous II, was told in the previous post. Four of the others are:

Khaled Jarrar
Khaled Jarrar is showing the sister work to his video at the Spafford Children’s Centre, I Soldier. This is a series of four acrylic panels painted in the spectrum of colours most strongly associated with the life of a soldier. In this painting series, also called I, Soldier, Jarrar takes the four colours usually mixed for camouflage uniforms and separates then into individual panels. This act conceptually links the paintings to the video, in which the soldiers were also recognisable as individuals through their quirks of choreography.

Jamal Jamaliev
A series of photographs by Jamal Jamaliev called Line of Fire (2010) are a strange and sometimes blurred document of observations from his research and experiences as a journalist. Born in 1952, he comprehensively researched the Crimean war which was the first war to be extensively documented in photographs. Over the past 10 years his research has focused on the war in Afghanistan and its repercussions on the Middle East.

Asad Azi
Asad Azi’s series of five works in Al Ma’mal called The Rider fit starkly with the theme for this Jerusalem Show. All are representations of a naked rider slumped over a donkey and each emits an atmosphere of complete exhaustive breakdown. The Rider seems no longer capable of any autonomous action. Asad Azi describes his figure as:

.. the awaited redeemer coming or returning to us, old, weary, burdened with our sins and our moans. Suddenly, he and we discover that he has been put in a dilemma that he cannot face. He is no more than a redeemer by accident, a redeemer by chance. He does not know who should be redeemed and who should be damned. He has been entirely confused by the constant change in the nature of people. More than anyone of us, the redeemer needs someone to redeem him.

Raeda Sadeh
Raeda Sadeh’s juxtaposition of a woman engaged in the perfectly normal act of knitting but with a hugely over sized ball of wool is surreal enough in itself. The fact that this activity is occurring while she sits amidst the rubble of her demolished house allows for several other levels of interpretation. This attempted act of normalcy amidst such chaos highlights the insanity the context and perhaps finally and inevitably that of the exhausted protagonist.

Sublimity and Anonymity

2010-10-12T09:53:00.000+02:00

As well as five of the Young Palestinian Artists covered earlier in this blog, Al Hoash also showed another video work by Taysir Batniji and photography by Martin Leiboda.

Taysir Batniji video Transit presents a silent slideshow of photographic images made clandestinely at border crossings between Egypt and Gaza in 2003-2004. The photographs of people waiting are alternated with black screens used as metaphors for emptiness, the passing of time, restricted mobility and discontinuity. The video addresses notions of borders, travel and displacement as well as the situation of being between two cultures and identities.

Martin Leiboda's artistic interest has taken him to Afghanistan, India, the UAE, Africa and Palestine, which he has visited several times. His photographic series are neither reportage nor conceptional documentary, but are often directed at situations that in themselves seem indecipherable.

They are visible to the naked eye and yet elude or resist a deeper meaning. I believe that my images, arranged next to each other, have an accumulative effect and thus reveal their own grammar necessary to be legible. The image of the coffee shop in Ramallah is one such word in a long sentence that conveys my experience of this city. (Text from Jerusalem Show Catalogue)

As well as exhibiting at Al Hoash, Martin Leiboda also contributed to Youmna Chlala and Jeanno Gaussi’s Home Sweet Home project. The photographs in their book of the undisturbed interior of the Jerusalem apartment in which their project was activated, were taken by Leiboda.

There were also two artists in the show this year that chose to remain anonymous rather than risk being associated with an exhibition in “Israel”. The work of one of these was a video called Direct Negotiations (2007), which was projected onto the wall opposite Anadiel Gallery. This ironic work showed a cat seemingly trapped behind glass scratching futilely against the surface, stopping to rest and then repeating the futile scratching again.

The other anonymous artist was showing at Al Ma’mal itself and was allegedly part of a collaborative curatorial intervention by curator and writer F. Zahir Mibineh who invited Anonymous to present a recent video work. The video is allegedly a four-hour long, low-resolution documentation of the artist masturbating to something only he can see on his laptop while also intermittently appearing to nasally ingest a white powder. This video piece was an instrument to examine issues related to obsession, emptiness, stamina, insatiability, unfulfilled desire and the overwhelmed gaze, with a critical text accompanying the piece that attempted to shed light on these themes.

However, the video never arrived, the artist never arrived, the curator never arrived. In its place were the text, transcripts, biographies and summaries with a blank projection onto the gallery wall and re-titled Staring at the Sea. The video had been confiscated and the anonymous artist (briefly) arrested and accused of trafficking in illicit material. Allegedly.

Michael Rakowitz - The Breakup

2010-10-10T00:10:00.010+02:00

Chicago based artist Michael Rakowitz first came into contact with Jack Persekian at the 8th Sharjah Biennial in 2007 and was actually invited to participate in the 2009 Jerusalem Show but couldn't make it. This year, however, he brought a multifaceted and meticulously designed project called The Breakup.

Mindful of the exhibition’s goal to serve as a metaphor for approaching the many facets of a contested city divided by occupation and segregation, “The Breakup” considers the intricacies of The Beatles’ 1969 breakup as an example of a collaborative cultural phenomena that over time stops functioning and reaches a point where negotiation fails as a tactic and communication is halted. How does this happen? What can be learned?

The central part of the multi-event public project is a ten-part radio program that will air on Ramallah-based Radio Amwaj (92.3 FM). Here The Beatles’ breakup will be dissected from the more than 100 hours of tapes generated during the filming of "Let It Be" to gain insight into the moment when enlightenment gave way to collapse, and to understand the feelings of isolation and alienation sustained at the time by both Paul McCartney and John Lennon. The project will culminate with a recreation of The Beatles’ final rooftop concert—but on a roof in Jerusalem in 2010 instead of London in 1969, with some of the new and former members of local Arabic music ensemble, Sabreen. An LP and a CD of the concert will be released in Palestine; the list of songs, on the album cover, will function as poetry, a demand for something that does not function to be fixed, for a dream denied to finally be realized:

Two of Us
The Long and Winding Road
Don’t Let Me Down
Get Back
Let It Be

The ten radio broadcasts were recorded in Chicago. Michael Rakowitz provided the central narrative thread and interspersed this with excerpts from the Let it Be tapes, and often unusual Beatles archive performances.

The recreation of the Beatles final rooftop concert was performed on the roof of the Swedish Christian Study Centre near Jaffa Gate with six local musicians who are part of, or connected to, the band Sabreen or to the Sabreen Organisation which now runs community music education programmes. Special guest musician for this event was Uriel Barthélémi on drums but the array of classical eastern and modern western instruments resulted in a truly unique reinterpretation of the five Beatles songs listed above. Although following the basic form of each track, Sabreen introduced extended improvisational sections as well as dedicated solo sequences that allowed each instrument to be heard in its own right. These included oud, qanoon, flute and several tablas in addition to the lead and bass guitars.

It is hoped that a further stage of the project will be based on the internet phenomenon of the Beatles ‘Fantasy Last Album’ in which people from all over the world have made fantasy artwork for this imagined work that never appeared because of the break up. In one case in Japan this was extended beyond the album to include detailed and entirely plausible documentation of imagined correspondence with producers and others who could have been involved.

In the context of the whole project, the idea is that this element can be transposed, and then juxtaposed, with a similar imagining of ‘Palestine’ in terms of design for currency and other symbols of statehood. The entire project would then be assembled as an audio visual installation.

Uriel Barthélémi - Exhaustion Triptych

2010-10-09T15:59:00.000+02:00

Three artists participating in the Jerusalem Show emerged from discussions on the concept of Exhaustion between Jack Persekian and Tarek Atoui who made three suggestions: Vlatka Horvat, Rigo 23 and Uriel Barthélémi.

Uriel Barthélémi is a composer, drummer and electro-acoustic musician who creates compelling physical and psychological dramas through the intense production of sound. Combining drums and electronics, composition and improvisation, his work captures the very essence of live performance.

The original proposition for the Jerusalem Show was that Barthélémi play in the street in Jerusalem for 6 hours continuously, but this was modified to take the form of three separate performances over several days. The first performance took place at the French Cultural Centre on October 4th and the second at Al Ma’mal on October 6th. The final part of the Triptych will be performed tonight (October 9th) on the roof of the PADICO building in the Old City.

Jack asked me and explained the Jerusalem Show and I said OK because making a performance like this sounded like something I would really like to do. I changed the proposition a little because six hours is a lot and I didn’t want to just make something that focused only on the physical aspects of exhaustion. I chose the form of a triptych. I took this form because it is something that is used in religious art so I wanted to hijack the form because of the association with religious aspects of Jerusalem.

I use a language that exists in normal music but it’s more extreme or more radical. However there is always a continuum. Technically I use basic Max/MSP software which allows me to programme my own applications so I can develop special effects for the drums. The sequence works as if you are flicking a remote control. However, the first part of the triptych was more like a concert because it was not completely random. I had pre-programmed Part I. In the second performance I wanted to gradually discard the tools so that I had less and less tools to express myself with. The third and final part of the triptych will really be complete improvisation. I will have no other forms to help. It will be free drumming for as long as I can play.

Youmna Chlala and Jeanno Gaussi

2010-10-09T14:57:00.000+02:00

Youmna Chlala and Jeanno Gaussi
Via Khan el Zeit: Home Sweet Home – Jerusalem
Artist book, video & installation.(2010)

Home Sweet Home, Jerusalem is a publication, video & installation project that investigates the exhaustive qualities of continually moving between the real and the imagined. By activating a home-space, we interrogate the relationships of self/object/ space and respond to a ritual of location that is rooted in the belief that home remains both a search and a dream. (Text from Jerusalem Show Catalogue)

We were invited by ArteEast to the March Meeting in Sharjah in 2010 and we presented our project there. We had already done the project in Jordan so we had a very clear idea in mind. We wanted to find the next location and to find people who were interested in this project and would like to work with us. We met Jack and Jumana and they invited us to come to Jerusalem so we came here for a month from mid July – mid August 2010.

Home Sweet Home looks at the rituals associated with location: first imagining the location, then moving to / staying in that location, then leaving and finally re-imagining the location after you have left it. The project has several components that differ slightly from location to location but include video, installation and publication.

In Jordan the project consisted of a collaborative video, installation and magazine which we called The Beloved. We did interviews with old people in the village and asked them what their most beloved object was. Through these objects we were often able to quickly get to intimate memories and the life stories associated with these. In Jerusalem this format is slightly different. There are two videos, photographs and a publication.

During our visit here we stayed in an apartment in Jerusalem for a month so the whole project was created in and about this space. We compiled a complete inventory of objects in the apartment and photographed them juxtaposing certain objects with others in the publication. Some of the photographs are exhibited at Anadiel.

Their interaction with someone else’s home in Jerusalem had an added dimension which took their investigation and representation of the space to another level. The owner of the apartment lives in Ramallah but needs to keep up the appearance of living in Jerusalem otherwise it will be designated as empty and repossessed by the Israeli municipality. Therefore the representation of the space and every object in it is also the representation of an illusion that is fundamental if one is to retain the physical reality of that home in Jerusalem at all.

Always have a Plan B (II)

The Book (that wasn’t there) Launch

Youmna Chlala and Jeanno Gaussi like to work with local organizations in whatever location their project is being executed. So they used a printer in Ramallah to print the books. When they received the publication there were some serious problems with it so although the video and photography installation at Anadiel were fine, the book launch - without the book - had to be completely re-thought.

So instead of launching the book at the Educational Bookshop on Salahuddin Street, they described the project instead through objects representing each stage: a mirror for the first imagining, an embroidery frame for the moving and staying, a pair of shoes for the leaving and chewing gum, a taste that fades, for the re-imagining. They talked about their experience of the space and how each of them developed their own video projects, and also about the wider project and how the essence of a universal human experience is contained within it. They also noted that they had not actually seen each other’s video work until they saw it as exhibited for the Jerusalem Show at Anadiel:

The fact that each video piece happened without the other person present, meant that it wasn’t until the moment of the show opening that we saw actually each other’s work. This was great because we each had very different interpretations of the space so we then could have a conversation about each of our different pieces which in turn starts a whole other conversation.

RIGO 23 - Part III (Prisons and Sunflowers)

2010-10-09T13:52:00.000+02:00

I met with the students in the International Art Academy over the course of several days. They kind of split into two groups: the ones who could get to Jerusalem and the ones who couldn’t. There were a group of about 6 students and I asked each one to make a contribution or bring a concept into the mural. I told them I was doing something like a tile design because of the factory and they were into that idea.

They were all kind of shy at first but when I said I was going to paint the wall one student, Azma, said ‘Don’t paint the wall!!!' She couldn’t understand why I was going to paint something so ugly. That helped to cement the notion that I should paint it because it can be invisible to visitors. So many tours come to Jerusalem to see the remnants of the holy but meanwhile they miss the incredibly unholy present.

Azma also said that she liked sunflowers. In Arabic the name of this flower means something like ‘slave of the sun’. So this started the whole idea of painting the wall not in terms of how it is a block to people moving but how it blocks out the sun which makes it anti-life in the most basic sense.

Maher said that there should be a symbol of Ramallah and suggested the lighthouse - a thing that is a beacon and shows the way. He also talked about a window so this contributed to the idea of the smaller section of the mural which shows the city of Jerusalem from the perspective of someone who cannot see it.

Two of the students, Razan and Hiba, came to Jerusalem. Hiba can travel and had been to San Francisco where I live now. When I asked her what she thought she said ‘It’s your project, you should stick to your concept. We are just students!’ This actually contributed to making me feel more comfortable making the decisions on my own.

Munzeh, who cannot leave Ramallah became very emotional about the situation. So I feel that this section of the mural that shows Jerusalem is for him. I asked him to do a design for the frame of the mural which he did. He drew it and cut it out of card and I carried it back to Jerusalem with me through the checkpoint.

Maher took me around Ramallah and he invited me to come to the place where he stays. He is from Hebron but lives in Ramallah during the week for school and only goes home on Fridays. He lives with his brothers and one of his brother’s sons. We spent all day in his small place above a shop. His younger brother had just come out of prison and Maher himself was in prison for four years during the first intifada. I stayed in the house until midnight. His brother cooked and we all shared a meal. This was really a very special night. While I was there people were coming in an out all day to visit. There were many different men and all of them had been in prison at some point.

Maher’s brother is an artist too. He made many drawings while he was in prison but when he left the Israeli guards confiscated them all and would not let him take them. So I commissioned him t o do me a drawing. He will send it to me and write something about his experiences and I will include it in my next project in the US in November. This is an exhibition of paintings by Native American Leonard Peltier who has been wrongfully imprisoned in the US since 1976. He is an artist and he sells his paintings to finance his defence committee.

When I got the invitation to Jerusalem I was at the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota preparing for this show. As I read the description of Exhaustion from the Palestinian perspective it fitted like a glove. It seems right that this relationship should continue, and that I should include this work from a former Palestinian prisoner. So the project goes now back and forth to Ramallah and the United States.

Young Palestinian Artists (Part IV) - Swedish Christian Study Centre

2010-10-08T16:36:00.000+02:00

Salama Safadi
Majdal Shams
Vanishing Point, Video (2010)

Last but certainly not least of the Young Palestinian Artists' project is Salama Safadi whose video Vanishing Point is being shown at the Swedish Christian Study Centre.

The video was taken surreptitiously on a mobile phone while moving through the turnstiles, checks and queues of Qalandia checkpoint. Given that tourists have sometimes been detained for taking photos of the checkpoints this was actually an extremely risky venture. As a consequence the video is imbued with the tension of potential discovery as well as the tension inherent in the oppressive architecture and experience of checkpoints.

Vanishing Point makes reference to a point where all lines meet and vanish into one point; the lines represent queues of people waiting to pass from Area A to Area B. This is the daily routine of Palestinians’ life, extraordinary though incomplete. Vanishing Point is a point where human and moral values disappear; it is a point where individual and collective privacy is violated by means of temporary domination over the place. (Text (abridged) from Jerusalem Show IV Catalogue)

Vlatka Horvat - Once Over

2010-10-08T14:31:00.000+02:00

Vlatka Horvat
Once Over, 2010 (performance)
Partnered in Jerusalem by Razan Akermawi.

Vlatka Horvat was born in Croatia but is currently based in New York. For the Jerusalem Show she presented her performance piece Once Over. The first incarnation of Once Over was developed and performed with Noémie Solomon and different versions of the piece are currently being worked on with several other collaborators. In Jerusalem her partner in the performance was Razan Akermawi and it was performed at the Austrian Hospice of the Holy Family. The first performance was on Wednesday 6th and the second performance will be on Saturday 9th at 7.00.

Once Over features two performers sitting at opposite sides of a square table negotiating, as if playing a game of strategy, but using only their hands moving on top of the surface of the table. This amplified tabletop exchange is recorded by a camera suspended over the table and projected live on a large screen behind them. The viewers are thus simultaneously witnessing two planes of activity – the life-scale of two people locked in an intense and spontaneous interaction, and the micro negotiations taking place between their hands. The unfolding drama is accompanied by a complex amplified vocabulary of taps, swipes, thuds, scratches and bangs as the hands make contact with the surface of the table.

The human drama, juxtaposed with its disembodied representation on screen, allows the viewer to be both present in the life-scale of the performance or to escape into the pure audio visual choreography of the screen.

Goal Dreams at Al Hoash

2010-10-07T10:35:00.000+02:00

The film screening at Al Hoash curated by Lara Khalidi and participating artist, Yazan Khalili, was the 2006 documentary, Goal Dreams, directed and produced by Maya Sanbar and Jeffrey Saunders. The film tells the story of the Palestinian National football team as it prepared for its first round match against Uzbekistan in the 2006 World Cup.

The saying that truth is stranger than fiction is never truer than in a case like this. The Palestinian 'National' team consisted of players from Chile, Kuwait, Lebanon, the USA, Gaza and the West Bank. Despite the commitment of the Austrian coach Alfred Riedl, and the passion of businessman Tayseer Barakat in driving the project the enormity of the task ultimately defeats them. There are problems trying to unify a team who don't have a common language and where translations into and out of Arabic, English and Spanish are not always reliable. Trying to make cohesive styles of play among team members who have grown up in different continents is another difficulty. But the biggest difficulty of all is the fact that the whole team never actually manage to arrive. After three attempts to cross the unpredictable 3-stage border from Gaza into Egypt, only five of the Gazan team members are allowed through despite special permits. When they do finally arrive it is only a week or so before the match and after only a few days training they hear that close friends in Gaza have been killed in Israeli attacks.

As well as having to train abroad, when they do finally get to play their 'home' game it's in Qatar. There is zero possibility of playing it in Palestine because it doesn't exist even if the national team do. So they had to borrow a stadium from the Qataris instead.

It is a film that encapsulates the real and present complications of anything national and Palestinian. The diaspora and its talents is entrenched in other places and completely globally spread. As more and more time drags on in the absence of any agreement there is less and less to return to that can be unified to create a national future. The international political rhetoric also drags on unchanged for decades ensuring that the ultimate result is a permanently open goal for Israel.

Young Palestinian Artists (Part III) - French Cultural Centre

2010-10-07T09:48:00.000+02:00

The French Cultural Centre has been a friend and partner of Al Ma''mal from the beginning. This started in 1992 when they were neighbours of Anadiel Gallery on Salahuddin Street. On Monday evening the Centre was host to Part I of Uriel Barthélémi's amazing performance Exhaustion Triptych. The second part of the Triptych was performed at Al Ma'mal last night and the third and final part will be on Saturday 9th at the Padico building. Moire about Uriel Barthélémi later but now is the time for Ice Cream!

Throughout this Jerusalem Show the French Cultural Centre are hosting Mohamed Fadel who is another of the Young Palestinian Artists. His series of ten paintings, collectively entitled Ice Cream, is displayed throughout the building and each of the large and colourful works take the name of an ice cream flavour. I can't remember which painting is which flavour so you will have to guess but I do know which one is the self portrait...

Mohamed Fadel

Kafr Yassif//Haifa

Ice Cream, Acrylic on Canvas, (2010)

We eat the ice cream before it melts just like dreams and joy. In a moment in time we hold the ice cream in order to find our momentary joy in life, and we find it beautiful though for a few minutes. It is an extraordinary recreation and we race against time before it melts. Ice cream melts fast. It rescues us from old age and hurls us back to the time of our childhood, play and entertainment. Ice cream is a good and enjoyable thing especially for children. Who among us does not like ice cream? Who among us does not seek to enjoy that moment? We remove the garment of daily life's concerns and hardships and search for transient delight. It is the childish and spontaneous disarray caused by the ice cream, and it is a challenge to the bitter experiences of daily life whose ingredients are the blockade, terror, hunger and intimidation. It is possible to include these under the rubric of the “ice cream” war. A child’s cry reverberates, “Stop the war; stop the destruction. Let us play and feel joy. Let us taste the other flavor of life.” (Text (from Jerusalem Show IV Catalogue)

RIGO 23 - Part II (The Primus)

2010-10-07T09:04:00.000+02:00

Taxi Ride Ramallah

When I told the taxi driver I was from Portugal he got very excited and started telling me about his grandfather who had sold Primus Stoves from Portugal in Ramallah and always said that the best stoves came from Portugal. He then insisted on taking me on a diversion to the place his grandfather had worked and showed me all these stoves with Made in Portugal written in Arabic. He apologised for not taking me direct to the Art Academy but I said no problem. It had been really wonderful. I had learned something about my country that I never knew and I decided somehow to incorporate the stoves into the design of the mural. This taxi driver had started a whole process – a direction in itself.

Young Palestinian Artists (Part II) - African Community Centre

2010-10-06T16:17:00.000+02:00

At the African Community Centre the work of four from the Young Palestinian Artists project was exhibited. As in Al Hoash the work was very mixed in terms of medium and included painting, sculpture, installation and photography .

THE AFRICAN COMMUNITY CENTRE

Mohammad Hawajiri

Breij Camp, Gaza.

Between Us, Photography (2010)

This is an art project that sheds light on the paintings of martyrs which are on display in public places in Palestinian cities and refugee camps. Some of the places add a new value to the paintings posted on electric posts, roofs of houses and other high places. The paintings of different sizes have become a phenomenon in Palestinian society because it shows reverence to them and immortalizes their memory and glorifies their heroic acts. In this project I present new pictures and images of Palestinian martyrs who are still living among us but in a new creative and artistic way far from the idea of death and dissolution. (Text (abridged) from Jerusalem Show IV Catalogue)

Randa Madar

Majdal Shams, Golan Heights

No Sgn of Hope, sculpture (2010)

In this work I try to put forth my vision influenced by the contradictory interaction between my body and my psyche and my inability to comprehend the entirety of events that occur in a peculiar society that has its own special political, social and economic circumstances. I did not wish to look for solutions or at motives and conditions that shape the current situation but rather I tried to present part of what lives in me while focusing on the points that seem to me to be of utmost significance. (Text (abridged) from Jerusalem Show IV Catalogue)

Mouayad Amleh

Qiblan/Nablus

The Centre Cannot Hold, Installation (2010)

The Centre Cannot Hold is a portable bus stop with a seat and cover for shade. This is Mouayad Amleh’s solution for not having a bus stop he is allowed to use:

I usually stand on the main road connecting the cities of Nablus and Ramallah waiting for the bus that takes me to Ramallah. I stand near Zaatara Military Barrier south of Nablus and to my left Israeli settlers from a nearby settlement, and Israeli soldiers who have just finished their shift at the barrier, wait and hide themselves under a cemented bus stop. To my right are indigenous Palestinian civilians who have been asked by the soldiers at the barrier to stand far from the cement bus stop by at least 100 metres. (Text (abridged) from Jerusalem Show IV Catalogue)

Karim Abu Shaqra

Umm Al Fahem

2010 … 67… 48… Four Panel Painting, Acrylic on canvas (2010)

This huge painting spread over four panels was displayed across the entire rear wall of the African Community Centre.

The work reflects the suffering of the Palestinian people and the life they have been living since 1948. The painting incorporates the meanings of suffering: pain, hardship, misery, sadness and loss of dear ones and friends. I, a Palestinian artist, am living and experiencing the current life of the Palestinian people. In this work I portray the events that my people have lived through, reflecting on the symbols and colours that stand for the past and the suffering of my people. (Text (abridged) from Jerusalem Show IV Catalogue)

Young Palestinian Artists (Part I) Al Hoash

2010-10-06T11:47:00.000+02:00

Mirna Bamieh

Jerusalem

Peeking Bag, Peeking Back, Installation (2010)

Peeking Bag, Peeking Back is a large suspended box with peepholes for viewers to look through. Inside the box, glass jars containing different objects are set in front of an internal mirror. Each peephole gives a slightly different view of the objects and their reflection. As the viewer moves around the box the peepholes become listening holes as the artist tells the stories and memories associated with the objects in this delicate archive.

Yazan Khalili

Ramallah

Area C, The Distant Landscape (Images from a Landscape in Exile) Photography (2010)

Under the Oslo Accords the land was divided into three distinct, and supposedly temporary, administrative areas pending a final peace agreement. Area A was placed under full control of the Palestinian Authority, Area B under Palestinian civil control but Israeli security control and Area C under full Israeli control. Area C constitutes, by far, the majority of the land area. This series of photographs depicts Area C as an exiled landscape in which the traveler, now passing through on a ribbon of designated asphalt, perceives only an image of the landscape that becomes ever more distant, rather than a physical space in which he is present. The process of repeatedly travelling through and photographing the landscape becomes the only way to reclaim a presence.

Nisreen Najjar

Nazareth

Route 443, Installation (2010)

This installation of disembodied sections of road with amusement park loops that lead nowhere, is a physically imposing representation of Route 443, the controversial main road linking Jerusalem and the West Bank settlements with Tel Aviv. Large areas of Palestinian land were confiscated for the road’s construction which was completely closed to Palestinians, including emergency vehicles, after the second uprising. This left Palestinians with roads already designated as unfit for use. The installation detaches the road from this absurd reality and transposes it to a situation in which it can embody the surreal world in which it lives.

Inass Yassin

Assira al Shamalieh / Ramallah

Projection (Edition 2), Installation (2010)

Projection is an ongoing art and research project exploring urban and socio-political change in contemporary Palestinian Society. The project looks at the culture and history of cinema in Palestine and the impact when cinemas were closed or demolished. Edition 2 looks specifically at the Al Walid Cinema in Ramallah / Al Bireh which finally closed in 2000 after being invaded and partially destroyed by the Israeli military.

Dima Hourani

Ramallah

N'oreal, Installation (2010)

N'oreal is a three part installation consisting of a large commercial light box and an assortment of postcards and T-shirts printed with other related images and text. The project uses the beauty industry and its promotional design to reference negative impacts of globalization. However, it is intermeshed with the political imagery of the Palestinian context creating a subversive collision of cosmetics, consumption and military occupation.

Palestinian Art Court - Al Hoash is on Zahra Street

Day Three – Young Palestinian Artists

2010-10-05T13:10:00.000+02:00

Day Three was a very busy day with visits to the African Community Centre, the Swedish Christian Study Centre, Palestinian Art Court - Al Hoash and the French Cultural Centre. However all of these venues are linked as a result of a partnership formed for this year’s Jerusalem Show between Al Ma'mal and Al Hoash.

The project - Young Palestinian Artists - began as an independent initiative of Al Hoash that would be timed to coincide with the Jerusalem Show. However from the very earliest stages of the project it was clear that the project was ideal for a full partnership.

In April /May 2010 Al Hoash announced the project and invited young Palestinians Artists between the ages of 20 and 30 to send in proposals for work to be included in the show. The call for submissions went out in newspapers, magazines and websites and was advertised in universities and cultural centres in Palestinian cities and the Diaspora. 62 proposals were received by Al Hoash and assessed by a jury consisting of Rawan Sharaf Director of Al Hoash, Jack Persekian, artist Suleiman Mansour, Tina Sherwell, Samar Martha and Mai Hasager.A decision was made in June and eleven were chosen.

The work of these eleven young artists is now being exhibited by the four organisations listed above resulting in a perfect match of venues and work. For Rawan Sharaf:

This is a very good step for cultural work in Jerusalem. It helped us to join forces and resources and this makes us both stronger.

RIGO 23 - Part I (The Wall)

2010-10-04T13:16:00.002+02:00

Al Ma’mal invited me to paint a mural. We discussed where and what scale but because a mural in the city would have to be erased after the Jerusalem Show, they decided that it should actually be painted on the wall at the entrance to Al-Ma’mal itself. I said that ideally I would like to work with a group of young people and they said OK. We tried to find a group to work with in Jerusalem but it didn’t quite work with the project so Al Ma’mal suggested I work with students from the International Academy of Art, Palestine, in Ramallah.

At this point the working title for the piece was Just another hole in the wall, a reference to the Pink Floyd album The Wall. However, the students were not granted permits to come to Jerusalem to work on the project so there had to be a change of plan. This was really the beginning of being here for me. Al Ma’mal said they could try and find another group in Jerusalem but I said no. The Ramallah students can’t come here but I can go to them so that was how the title of this collaborative project became Back and Forth to

The plain wall is small for a mural but because Al Ma’mal refers to the Tile Factory I thought about using tiles and for this, the wall is big. So this could shift the scale of the wall and connect to the Factory at the same time.

RIGO 23 - INTERVIEW

Day Two - Always Have a Plan B

2010-10-04T12:50:00.001+02:00

The first night of film screenings at Al Ma’mal opened with an apology that the films on the programme were not actually going to be shown after all.

Full Bloom had been due to arrive in Jerusalem that day along with its Director, Sandra Madi, but she hadn't been able to get a visa despite coming from next door neighbour Jordan. Is there some ‘deny film maker’ clause in the 1994 Peace Agreement between Jordan and Israel that I don’t know about? The only relevant clause I remember was a ban on 'hostile propaganda', whatever that means but I don't think it means a film about a boxer.

So the audience had arrived and were waiting for the film that wasn't there to begin. Al Ma’mal had to find a fast and appropriate alternative….. which it did.

In 2004 British Artist Phil Collins approached Al Ma’mal with an idea for a video in which he would film a dance marathon in Ramallah. He worked with a group of Palestinian teenagers and the idea was that they would dance for 8 hours solid or until they were so exhausted they couldn’t continue. The resulting video has since been screened extensively around the world.

However, the original idea came from a 1969 film directed by Sidney Pollack called They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? The film is set during the great depression of the 1930s and is the story of a dance marathon near Hollywood in which people participated either for the prize money, to be noticed by Hollywood talent scouts or just for the free food. As the marathon turns into weeks, the spectacle becomes ever more macabre as exhaustion and desperation initiate the physical and psychological disintegration of those remaining. When the main protagonist discovers there are numerous hidden deductions from the prize money, she abandons the marathon, begging her equally desperate and exhausted dance partner to shoot her through the head, which he does.

They Shoot Horses, Don't They? communicated something deeply disturbing about the human condition in its own era but repositioning the obvious parallels in the context of Exhaustion and Jerusalem was an inspired Plan B.

Ariane Michel

2010-10-04T11:10:00.000+02:00

Ariane Michel’s video work tends to focus on animals and the three works presented during the Jerusalem show are no exception. Two of these works, Celeste’s Birds and Wide Eyes were special screenings at Al Ma’mal in the context of La Nuit Blanche, an ongoing project initiated in Paris. The other work, On the earth was screened specifically as part of Exhaustion.

La Nuit Blanche at Al Ma'mal

Celeste’s Birds is collaboration with Celeste Boursier-Mougenot who released birds into a gallery where he had placed suspended guitars in place of perches. The guitars were plugged into amplifiers resulting in sound every time the small, quick and darting birds landed on the strings. The guitar sounds are fused with chirping and beating of wings creating a unique and fascinating composition that is also compelling to watch.

The Round Eyes brings Paris to Jerusalem and also with the focus on a bird A young owl sits on a branch in the middle of Paris with some iconic and brightly lit markers of the city visible in the distance. The middle ground is full of the busy night time traffic. The owl seems oblivious to this urban and human activity and its occasional gaze, deep into the camera offers the viewer not only a different perspective, but the perception of arrested time. Originally made to be projected on the side of the Musee de Jeu Paume in Paris, The Round Eyes, was screened against the walls of the Tile Factory where it acquired the added textural dimension of the stone.

Exhaustion

Ariane Michel's work for Exhaustion is being shown at Nicola Zaphiriades shop near Al Ma'mal. This video called On the earth, shows a beach full of sleeping walruses. Behind them is a landscape of calm sea and rock through which a big wooden boat slowly passes. The animals move minimally and infrequently but like the owl often seem to look into the camera directly. Both image and sound are natural giving the audience a direct connection to the environment and although it seems to be in slow motion it is actually in real time. The composition is meticulous:

One of the subjects of this work is time. Like stones these beasts are ancient and they allow the viewer to enter another time and to slow down. I want it to be almost therapeutic. Allowing people to watch and hear and reconnect their senses to another time and place. It is important to show works that can possibly give people some rest. In this sense it works with the theme of the show because it’s purpose is to give relief. (Ariane Michel, Jerusalem, October 2010)

The Emergence of Exhaustion

2010-10-03T16:49:00.000+02:00

The theme of Exhaustion was palpable after just three venues on the opening walk of the 4th Jerusalem Show. Reviews of work at the eight other venues and of special performances and film screenings are to follow but first a brief summary.

Eighteen Palestinian and international artists were invited by Al Mamal to think through the theme of Exhaustion in the context of the city and its environment, and to produce work that explored issues involved in this condition and feeling which afflicts the whole of Palestinian society and is palpable in Jerusalem particularly. In addition, 11 young Palestinian artists were commissioned by Palestinian Art Court, Al Hoash to produce new artworks to be presented in the framework of the Jerusalem Show. Jumana Abboud and Jack Persekian drafted an outline of what Exhaustion meant in the context and sent this to selected artists asking them to respond. They were already aware of the existing work of some artists that would fit very well with the theme and in some cases these specific works were requested.

The theme for the Jerusalem Show IV-2010 is inspired by the prevailing state of apathy, anger, helplessness, docility and alienation in one’s own town. Exhaustion describes best the widespread feeling amongst the majority of the inhabitants of the city. Be it the closure, the lack of any viable solution or even a political horizon, the crumbling economic conditions, the closing in of Palestinian residents through an orchestrated policy of confiscation, demolition, fines and taxation, all contribute to a state of insecurity and fear of the future. Nothing is offered, given or provided hence people revert to snatch, grab, jump the line, and most importantly break the atrocious laws, any laws even those that govern human relations. All this calls for some investigation, some probing and possibly uncovering and betrayal. (Al Ma'mal, Invitaton to artists, 2010)

Notes on an Opening

2010-10-02T14:30:00.000+02:00

JERUSALEM SHOW IV - EXHAUSTION

There is a woman with a laptop in a huge room. She is performing in sound to accompany the sunset over Jerusalem from the top floor of the Padico building in the heart of the Old City. The room is full but seems somehow empty because most of the people are standing or sitting around the edges. It’s as if they are reluctant to intrude upon the beauty of the floor. The room fills with the softening light from the pale orange sky. From every arched window a panoramic view of the Old City. The sounds go down gently with the sun.

Sarah Faruki, Light Composition (2010)

Sound Installation

Up on the roof Jack Persekian introduces the 4th Jerusalem Show. He talks about the theme, Exhaustion, and about the walk that 100 or so people are about to take to 8 venues through the darkening streets of the Old City. It’s very hot for six o’ clock in the evening. “Not even the weather is normal anymore” says somebody. Before starting off, the 100 go down in small groups to the damp basement where a video projected on to the wall shows a man shovelling sand relentlessly from one pile to another. It's a task that never progresses. The wall is rounded, damp slightly crumbling. The shape and texture becomes part of the film.

Taysir Batniji, Impossible Journey

Video documentation of Performance, 2002-2009

Next we arrive at the Spafford Children’s centre and the interior of the building is again an amazing thing to see. The tiled floors, the huge rooms, the stone, the doors, the details. A video. A girl hangs upside down as the camera alternates between her view of things and our view of her. The rain pours down and soaks her and still she hangs. A fire is lit behind her and still she hangs. Normal things happen – cats playing, taps dripping – and still she hangs.

Bahar Behbahani, Suspended (2007)

Video

Another video. Looking down on soldiers marching in formation. Up and down. Turn around. Up and down. Turn around. In the shade. Out of the shade. Back in the shade. Back out of the shade. Hats off. Hats on. Off. On. Repeat. But the choreography of this battalion is not precise. You wonder if they are really soldiers or if it is just their own weariness.

Khaled Jarrar, I Soldier (2010)

Video

Someone unlocks the big door to the Austrian Hospice of the Holy Family. It is already starting to feel like a privilege to be seeing the interiors of these buildings. Like being granted access to a secret manuscript but for this community it's normal. It's theirs. Another beautiful room. Tiled floors. Richly decorated walls, dark wooden doors and painted ceilings. Another video. This one is like watching Ophelia trying to prevent herself from drowning. And we are only at the third venue.

Raeda Saadeh, Drops (2010)

Video

Jerusalem Syndrome 2009

2010-10-01T15:58:00.010+02:00

The city of Jerusalem is characterized by the concentration of diversity and its conflicts - spiritual, political and territorial at the same time. The Jerusalem Syndrome overtakes tourists, who are overwhelmed by the unique denseness of spiritual sites in the Holy City, their history and imaginaries. Between fifty and two hundred travellers, pilgrims and tourists, every year are affected by the syndrome, believing they are Virgin Mary or the Messiah. They are walking around the city, trying to spread the news of their palingenesis or the apocalypse – before they are taken to the state psychiatric ward.

Therefore the Jerusalem Syndrome stands for enlightenment and collapse at the same time, it is the strongest effect Jerusalem can have on the personality of a visitor. The madness and illusion of being chosen also characterizes the relations of religion and power, when the historical importance of religious sites are cited to legitimate territorial claims over the city. In this sense Jerusalem is also the nucleus of the occupation and its spatial-military practice. (Introduction to the Jerusalem Show 2009) .

In 2009 Jerusalem was designated Capital of Arab Culture by the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALESCO). This usually entails a year long programme of events in the designated city supported by Arab League members and cultural organisations. Jerusalem would have been difficult at the best of times given the difficulties of approval for a celebration of Arab Culture in Jerusalem. As 2009 began, however, there were far worse problems than the Israeli municipality. The aerial bombardment of Gaza and subsequent ground invasion were ongoing and tensions among Palestinians and the wider Arab world were exacerbated as a consequence. Not an ideal time to be planning for an Arab Culture festival.

In the end the official launch of the Capital of Arab Culture in Jerusalem had to be delayed by several months and even then the challenges of trying to organize events in a city sealed off from the majority of the Palestinian population were as absurd as ever. However, the Jerusalem Show in 2009 was also a part of this wider framework and as a consequence extra resources were available. This was reflected in the additional sponsorship and support that the Jerusalem Show managed to bring on board which had a huge impact on what the Jerusalem Syndrome was able to do:

What it meant was that we could invite more artists and more guests and also generate better publicity. First and foremost it allowed us to put together some significant installations like Ramallah Syndrome [Sandi Hilal + Alessandro Petti] which was installed in PADICO. This was a technically quite sophisticated project and these kinds of complex technical systems are expensive. This project in particular was very, very important because it concerns a phenomenon which has had a huge impact on Jerusalem and is a very present discussion among Palestinians. The work was a sound installation capturing a series of these informal discussions. (Jack Persekian, October 2010)

The ‘Ramallah Syndrome’ essentially refers to the impression created and promoted that Ramallah is a successful, developing and dynamic city that demonstrates concrete and tangible results on the ground of the ‘success’ of the failed Oslo Peace Process. This constant positive and illusory focus on Ramallah as a PR tool to justify both the Palestinian Authority and the Oslo process is seen as contributing much to Jerusalem’s decline and invisibility. It obscures the economic and social deprivation of Palestinians in Jerusalem and also in other Palestinian cities, and is essentially seen as a surreal act of propaganda for a failed process and an impotent authority. Installing the work in Jerusalem that year took on an added importance because it came fresh from Palestine c/o Venice, the first ever Palestinian representation at the Venice Biennale.

The whole programme in 2009 included 30 artists, a co-curator, Nina Montmann and film programmes curated by Rasha Salti, Lara Khalidi and Yazan Khallili. Partnerships and events this year were also able to go beyond Jerusalem. The show coincided with the 3rd Riwaq Biennale in Ramallah, headed by Khalil Rabah, and there were several concurrent events. Joint symposia were also held at Birzeit University and menat that Jack Persekian and Khalil Rabah worked together again for the first time in many years. Huda Iman’s Centre for Jerusalem Studies at Al Quds University was once again involved in organizing walking tours around the Old City while another Ramallah partner was the International Art Academy, Palestine. The Academy, founded in 2006, was headed by Dr. Tina Sherwell, an early contributor to Al-Ma’mal’s workshops as was tutor Rula Halawani. Another of the academy's tutors was Emily Jacir who had exhibited as artist in residence at Al Ma'mal and been part of both previous Jerusalem Shows.

There were also concurrent activities running throughout the Show including Youth Visions of Jerusalem, an exhibition of new media art projects made by Al Ma'mal workshop participants at Bethlehem Peace Center and architectural trails organized by the Riwaq Biennial which took visitors to important heritage sites in Birzeit, Taybeh, Hebron and Galilee.

The designation of Jerusalem as Capital of Arab Culture did make a difference on the ground that year despite the difficulties. What it proved was that extra international support not only helps one institution to grow and mature but enables greater co-operation between several, when the pressure of competition for limited resources is temporarily eased. In the enduring absence of normality it was also a rare opportunity to express the cultural contiguity, impervious to checkpoints and walls, that remains between Jerusalem and other Palestinian cities.

Jerusalem Syndrome - The Jerusalem Show 2009
Artists: Jumana Emil Abboud, Nevin Aladag, Ayreen Anastas + Rene Gabri, Samira Badran, Taysir Batniji, Nathan Coley, Collaboration Around Micro Politics Mumbai (CAMP), Phil Collins, Kajsa Dahlberg, Andrea Faciu, Issa Freij, Raouf Haj-Yahia, Sandi Hilal + Alessandro Petti + Basel Abbas + Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Mahmoud Hojeij, Khaled Hourani, Maider Lopez, Ken Lum, Sliman Mansour, Olaf Nicolai, Ria Pacquee, Wael Shawky, Ala Younis.

Performance: Basel Abbas + Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Tarek Atoui, Phil Collins, Dora Garcia, Suheir Hammad

Sound Project: curated by Federica Bueti in collaboration with RAM, Radio Arte Mobile, Rome (Italy)
Artists: Elisabetta Benassi, Riccardo Benassi, Alvin Curran, Etienne Chambaud, Liam Gillick, Christina Kubisch, Brandon La Belle, Tris Vonna Michell, Carsten Nicolai, Cesare Pietroiusti, Vettor Pisani, Annie Ratti, Michael J. Schumacher, Valerio Tricoli, Stephen Vitiello, Luca Vitone, Achim Wollscheid

How I Have Missed You
Film Program I co-presented with ArteEast, curated by Rasha Salti
Films by Maher Abi Samra, Ghassan Salhab, Mohamed Soueid and Akram Zaatari

We Are Never Heroes
Film Program II curated by Lara Khaldi and Yazan Khalili
Films by Johan Grimonprez, Annemarie Jacir, Mustafa Abu Ali, JeanLuc Godard, Elia Suleiman

Walks & Tours in Jerusalem
Organized by the Center for Jerusalem Studies Al Quds University

Collaborating institutions
A.M. Qattan Foundation, Anadiel Gallery, ArteEast, Austrian Hospice of the Holy Family, Center for Jerusalem Studies - Al Quds University, College des Freres, International Academy of Art Palestine, Palestine Development and Investment Limited (PADICO), RAM - Radio Arte Mobile, Rome, Riwaq Biennale, Shabaka - Network of Arab Cineclubs, Spafford Children’s Center, The Jerusalem Hotel, The Tile Factory, The Swedish Christian Study Center, Venice c/o Palestine, Versavee Cafe, Jerusalem.

Sponsors and Supporters
Austrian Hospice of the Holy Family, Consulate General of Belgium in Jerusalem and The Belgian Technical Cooperation (BTC), Bohen Foundation, British Council, Consulat Général de France à Jérusalem, Darat al Funun - The Khalid Shoman Foundation, Ford Foundation, Goethe Institute - Ramallah, Palestinian Investment Fund, Prince Claus Fund for Culture & Development, Sharjah Art Foundation, The Jerusalem Unit, Sociedad Estatal para la Accion Cultural Exterior (Seacex), Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) - Jerusalem, The Representative Office of Canada to the PA.

The Jerusalem Show 2008

2010-09-29T15:40:00.000+02:00

The first Jerusalem Show had essentially been a pilot but had worked so well that a decision was taken to make it an annual event:

I think we realised that this was the way forward. Over the previous 10 years Al-Ma’mal had built a presence and established its programmes so people were no longer noticing the work we did in the same way. The Jerusalem Show was a way to sum up the work we do for the whole year and to put it all into one big event using every venue in the city. (Jack Persekian, Interview 2010)

The Jerusalem Show became a way of not only consolidating everything that Al Ma’mal had done but also involving the community directly in an event dedicated to their city. Another practical benefit was that preparations for the show meant that Al-Ma’mal could provide work experience for students and volunteers. Thus when the idea of the second Jerusalem Show was raised in 2008, local organizations and institutions once again enthusiastically offered their support.

The success of the guided tours of the exhibition in 2007 contributed to the underlying concept for the second Jerusalem Show which was Walks in the City with routes inspired by the organization of artworks both indoors and outdoors throughout the Old City. In this sense the walks in the city became a kind of treasure hunt for artworks with some easier to find than others. Emily Jacir created a sound work installed at Damascus Gate (Bab il Amoud). From a speaker mounted on a balcony came calls from servees or communal taxi drivers announcing the departure of the taxis to neighbouring cities like Amman and Damascus, regular taxi routes before 1967. The sound of their voices calling out the city names was a reminder of the once fluid space of movement, connection and exchange.

Less than ten minutes from Damascus Gate in a narrow residential alley was another site-specific installation by Manar Zuaibi called O’shb Akhdar Akhdar (Green Green Grass). Zuaibi threaded wires inside long strings of red wool and inserted the red thread into the holes between stones in the walls so that each then spontaneously burst forth from the holes in the walls.

Intervening in the physical environment in ways that could not be overlooked was a feature of the second Jerusalem Show. Nida Sinnokrot positioned 3mm LEDs throughout the Old City which shone a brilliant blue for approximately 15 days. Once discovered the lights invariably shifted location in the hands of children and adults alike, mapping their own passage throughout the City.

Oraib Toukan worked with an economist to calculate the real market values for the purchase of nation states on a 99-year lease-hold and then produced auction catalogues and signs for upcoming auctions of Middle East territory. Henrik Placht mounted a large neon sign.

25 artists participated in the second Jerusalem Show and several of these were former artists in residence at Al-Ma'mal. The range of mediums were customarily eclectic and included paintings, photography, film screenings, videos and performances including Elizabeth Sansome’s The Secrets of Mary Magdalene

One exhibition was also a truly organically integrated Jerusalem event. It was an exhibition of work from Al-Ma’mal’s workshops in co-operation with Burj Al-Laqlaq Community Centre and Relief International, sponsored by grants from the Pontifical Mission and the Society for Austro-Arab Relations.

Film maker Issa Freij documented the people, the works and the walks of the 2nd Jerusalem Show in a film called Forgive and Forget. While The Jerusalem Show was a chance to experience the city in the here and now the title of the film, Forgive and Forget, was an ironic marker of the 60th anniversary of 1948.

THE FIRST JERUSALEM SHOW - 2007

2010-09-27T12:37:00.000+02:00

I remember the day Jack came into the office, handed us a document and said ‘Jumana, Raeda, Khadijeh - here is the idea for the Jerusalem Show. Read it and tell me what you think. I think we should do it this year. (Jumana Abboud Interview April 2010)

The year referred to was 2007 and another major development for Al- Ma’mal that year was the inaugural Jerusalem Show. Putting on a major art event in the Old City of Jerusalem was an idea that had actually been around for a very long time. The idea was not only discussed at Anadiel in 1996/97, but was developed to the extent that Anadiel produced a blueprint banner for the potential event which even then was being referred to as the Jerusalem Show.

In 1997, however, it didn’t go any further and it took ten years for the Jerusalem Show to become a reality. According the Jack Persekian there were two reasons for this:

The main reason is that in 1997 I didn’t have the confidence to put such a project together – and of course I thought it would cost too much money that we just didn’t have.

By 2007 I had done a few Biennials and put on big shows. This gave me a lot more confidence and I thought that money would come regardless. The main thing was to get the artists and the plans and just pull it together. (Jack Persekian, Interview April 2010).

And pull it together they did. The first Jerusalem Show titled Outside the Gates of Heaven was held from October 20 to 30 2007. It featured 22 artists including both local and Diaspora Palestinians and international artists with work shown in different locations throughout the Old City. Al Ma’mal’s network of artists, institutions and partners built up over the preceding ten years provided venues, collaborative projects and various other kinds of cooperation and support. The Show was described by Al-Ma’mal in the following way:

The Jerusalem Show is neither a biennial nor a one-time event. It is neither a large-scale show nor an international grand exhibition. We like to see it as an attempt to intercede between the apocalyptic decadal tides of upheaval under which the city kneels, stealing time during the ebb of violence to wage an action of covert resistance to the forced hegemony of one creed and one people on the city. (Al-Ma’mal (2007) website text).

As well as the art itself there were several other components to the Jerusalem Show. Jack Persekian led guided tours of the exhibition in which audiences were taken on a voyage of discovery through the narrow streets and alleys of the city, up onto rooftops and into community centres and clubs. Another unique tour organized by the Centre for Jerusalem Studies (CJS) at Al-Quds University took visitors underground on the Old City Tunnel Tour.

There was a workshop programme with Samira Badran and Rula Khoury organized by the Palestinian Art Court – Al Hoash and held at the Saraya Center for Community Services. There was a performance by Sydost a contemporary dance group who had been invited by the Swedish Christian Study Centre. There was a special performance by Al-Hakawati Theatre’s Francois Abu Salem of Mahmoud Darwish’s A Memory for Forgetfulness at the Palestinian National Theatre.

There was also a special concert screening called Entry Denied. In 2002 Marwan Abado and his band had been invited to perform a concert in Jerusalem but they were detained on arrival in Tel Aviv airport and denied entry. Emily Jacir asked Abado and his band to perform the concert in an empty theatre in Vienna, exactly as it would have taken place in Jerusalem. She filmed the performance and brought the concert to Jerusalem in 2007. Its screening in the Tile Factory building was an additional defiance enabling Al Ma’mal to present the Tile Factory space to an audience and to incorporate it into the framework of the Jerusalem Show regardless of its unrenovated state.

The Jerusalem Show was unprecedented and therefore risky, but it worked on many different levels and established another benchmark for the future of cultural life and creative activity in the City. It also contributed much to fulfilling another of Al Ma’mal’s stated objectives for the show:

….. to re-define our work and position in Jerusalem from that of artistic space-fillers to activists. In a context and time such as this, art, culture, activism, manifestations, political protest, social work, etc., are all part of our actions and our understanding of what a show in Jerusalem should entail. (Jack Persekian 2007, Al Ma'mal website text)

THE JERUSALEM SHOW

2007 - Contemporary Art Museum Palestine (CAMP)

2010-09-22T17:56:00.110+02:00

2007 was another turning point for Al-Ma'mal in several ways. The internationalization of the Foundation consolidated by Jack Persekian’s move to Sharjah opened up new possibilities one of which was CAMP - Contemporary Art Museum Palestine. This idea had slowly emerged as Al-Ma’mal accumulated its own art collection going back to the early days of Anadiel, and including works by almost all of Al-Mamal’s artists-in-residence over the years. There was no museum for contemporary art in Palestine nor was there likely to be one in the foreseeable future. Any idea that the Tile Factory might be able to house part of the collection continued to be thwarted by municipal and other absurdities.

The idea for CAMP first started to emerge around 2004 – 05. I thought through several questions - how can I safeguard these works, give them exposure, ensure conservation and guarantee their care without some permanent infrastructure or the know how of a museum? I concluded that the best thing to do was partner with existing institutes or museums. I was always looking for partners and trying to sell this idea to them

In the end I secured several partners and that is how CAMP was born although before this stage the whole conceptual level of this had been in my mind for quite a while. The project works beautifully on a conceptual level. It was a collection but in a Diaspora – Al-Ma'mal’s actual physical art collection but constantly mobile and never able to be shown in one place until some future point when we have the resources the infrastructure and the actual physical space to open a Contemporary Art Museum of Palestine. Another nice aspect of this is that some pieces don’t exist physically they have to be re-assembled like Jean Luc Vilmouth’s piece. (Jack Persekian, Interview April 2010)

This customarily innovative solution would reinterpret both the premise and the parameters of the museum as a national institution, while still reflecting its significance in terms of national identity. These ideas developed and by 2007 the CAMP project was outlined in concrete terms with a comprehensive proposal that included the following statement:

We believe that a contemporary art museum must be a flexible, living organism, an expanding space that will facilitate the realization of cultural projects, empower creative individuals and avoid stagnation. Hence we envision CAMP's essence not as a physical place, but as a real and fluid entity, a nomadic site where dialogue, growth and experimentation are encouraged.

We would like to establish CAMP in a way that might reflect one of the core Palestinian experiences – displacement – without illustrating a political narrative. Moreover, we hope to transform CAMP's nomadic status, which reflects a tragic reality, into a lever for new opportunities, innovative thought and dynamic multi-cultural productivity.

Our project involves the biennial 'nomadic' movement of CAMP, its cumulative art collection and 'portable' structure, from place to place. CAMP will find a temporary 'home' under the auspices of a 'host museum.' The 'host museums' – located across the globe – will be invited to interact with CAMP's presence and to initiate projects and exhibitions. (Al-Ma'mal Proposal for CAMP, 2007)

Al-Ma’mal found an ideal partner in Charles Esches, Director of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands (and co-founder, with Mark Lewis, of the international arts journal Afterall). One of the first public museums for contemporary art to be established in Europe, the Van Abbemuseum’s approach fitted perfectly with the rationale set out by CAMP.

The [Van Abbe] museum has an experimental approach towards art’s role in society. Openness, hospitality and knowledge exchange are important. We challenge ourselves and our visitors to think about art and its place in the world, covering a range of subjects, including the role of the collection as a cultural 'memory' and the museum as a public site. (Van Abbemuseum website 2010)

The Van Abbemuseum has since become the first ‘host’ for some of the CAMP Collection and several works are currently being exhibited for the first time in The Politics of Collecting - The Collecting of Politics, part of a larger Van Abbemuseum project looking at the museum in the 21st century.

Artist-in-Residence – Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen 2006

2010-09-21T20:39:00.000+02:00

As noted earlier the work pioneered in the 1990s first by Anadiel, and then Al-Ma'mal, always had a very focussed international dimension. By the mid 2000s, therefore, both Al-Ma'mal and Jack Persekian had established a strong presence in the global, as well as the rapidly growing Middle East arts scene. As a consequence Jack Persekian was offered the job of Head Curator of the 7th Sharjah Biennale in the United Arab Emirates in 2005.

One of the artists participating in the Biennale was Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen who has since had on ongoing relationship with Al-Ma'mal. He was artist-in-residence in 2006 and also a participant in the first Jerusalem Show in 2007.

1. How did you first get involved with Al-Ma'mal?
I met Jack Persekian in Sharjah, UAE in 2005. This was Jack's first year at the biennial and for 5 months I was artist-in-residence at Sharjah Biennial 7. Jack and I spent a lot of time together. Through him, his assistant Rania and through artists I met during my time there I learned about his Art Foundation in Jerusalem. At that time I was in the early days of developing a new strand of my artistic practice - a kind of poetic, reflective, anti-journalistic documentary film making. I thought that Jerusalem would be an immensely challenging place to develop my film making, and I proposed to Jack and to the Al-Ma'mal Foundation for Contemporary Art that I would do a residency in Jerusalem. The following year I travelled to Jerusalem with my cameraman, Jonas Mortensen to embark on a 5 week residency, which to this date has been one of the most inspiring experiences I have ever had.

2. What were the main challenges during your residency at Al-Ma'mal?
My main aim during my residency was to capture on video little poetic moments of everyday life between the immensely heavy political and religious chaos in the region. Every day during my residency I would film, edit and upload a clip of what I had experienced unto a website, http://www.mystictruths.net./ All I had ever heard about in the news was related to the ongoing struggle between Palestinians and Israelis, and by depicting small moments of life of a more poetic and sensitive nature than the constant flow of journalistic sensationalism, I hoped to create an alternative vision of life in and around Jerusalem. This became my biggest challenge...to try and avoid depicting concrete political issues that one would see in news reports.

Recently I made a film in Lebanon together with Lebanese film maker, Corine Shawi. Corine was constantly conscious not to produce what she called 'exotic' footage for our film. And to use her term, trying to stay clear of 'exotic' filmmaking proved to be the main challenge during my residency in Jerusalem.

3. What are your strongest memories of your residency period?
During my time at Al-Ma'mal I was bombarded with impressions much stronger than I ever experienced before. Life, death, faith, politics etc. are a much more present and important part of peoples lives than in Europe. I was shocked by seeing how uncertain the Palestinians' everyday lives are - and that the international community allows the occupation to happen. I have incredible memories from the time I spent there, the people I met, the landscapes I travelled through. One day I felt the conflict on my own body. Jonas and I were caught in a crossfire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians during a demonstration in Belee'n and I was hit by a rubber bullet. An extreme and long lasting rush of pain, fear, anger, frustration, adrenalin etc. was incredibly powerful. In a strange way this incident was one of the most incredible moments of my life. I somehow felt that my work and life had a purpose.

The humiliating architecture of the checkpoints, the sights of the settlements (and ongoing construction of new settlements), the house-demolitions...all these things made me feel that I had an immense responsibility of taking my time in Jerusalem, and the work I made during the residency, really seriously. I learned so much during my time there, and the films I have made since all deal with real life issues.

4. The following year you participated in the Jerusalem Show. Can you comment about your experience of this?
I was really happy to be invited to participate in the Jerusalem Show, and it was a great feeling to return to Jerusalem. On my return I had had a year to digest and reflect on my impressions from my residency. For me, the process of making films and artworks is often more exciting than exhibiting them. But I was really happy to present the sound sculpture 'Satellite' under the dome of an old hamam [public bath house], and I especially liked the process of developing a work (site-)specifically for Jerusalem and its citizens.

5. Do you have any general observations about the art scene you found in Jerusalem / Palestine and the role of Al-Ma'mal?

Perhaps it is different now, but at the time I felt that the different institutions in the region: Al-Ma'mal Foundation for Contemporary Art, Artschool Palestine, the Biennial in Ramallah etc. could work closer together rather than competing.

6. Any other comments?

I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to work with Al-Ma'mal Foundation for Contemporary Art.

To see all videos from the project please see: http://www.mystictruths.net/

Artist-in-Residence – Desiree Palmen 2006

2010-09-18T18:37:00.000+02:00

1. How did you first get involved with Al-Ma'mal?
I had done a project in Rotterdam called Streetwise (2002). This was a project featuring film and photographs of ‘camouflage suits’ that enabled people to ‘disappear’ in front of surveillance cameras. There were many surveillance cameras in Rotterdam and this is something that interests me very much. I had a solo show of this work in the Nuova Icona gallery in Venice in 2005, a non profit space run by Vittorio Urbani. Vittorio introduced me to Kamal Boullata. My project was composed of pictures and videos and Kamal said if I thought there were a lot of cameras in Rotterdam then I should see Jerusalem!

He said he thought it would be very interesting to do such a project there and he told me about Al-Ma’mal and told me I could apply to their artist-in-residence programme. To my own surprise I immediately said yes. I actually have a friend in Tel Aviv who a few years before also suggested I should do a project in Israel but at that time this seemed too complex. So I had decided that I should wait for a while. However, this project seemed very clear and very easy so I applied to Al-Ma’mal hoping they would like the project and they did. So I went to Jerusalem as an Al-Ma'mal artist-in-residence in 2006.

2. What were the ideas behind your workshop?
The project was related to being in Venice in 2005 because that was also the Biennale year and I had been invited to participate in a biennale collateral event called Reaction organized by Camilla Seibezzi and Vittorio Urbani. For this I made ‘dummy suits’ which were suits designed to look as if you have somebody with you.

For Italy it was great to design these suits which made the wearer look as if they were accompanied by someone else and especially a child. I had several models who wore these suits and they walked among the public and were camouflaged among the crowds watching the other performance events happening around Venice.

So this idea is what I took to Jerusalem. I asked the young people in the workshop to make a suit that made them feel that they were with someone else. They could choose the kind of situation they wanted to be in with this other person – it could be a fight or a dance or an embrace – they decided. In many cases they had to help each other and this was often done by one person wearing two layers of clothes and getting into the position another student wanted for their ‘dummy’.

So they sometimes had to get very close and sew the clothes together around other people’s bodies or behind their heads. Then the dummy person would slip out of the second layer of clothes and these would then be filled with stuffing. They connected really easily with the work. It was kind of hilarious for the kids to have to sew persons to each other and as well as being fun it was perhaps a legitimate way to break down some of their own barriers and get closer to each other. What was nice was that they all seemed to understand perfectly what the project was without the need for language. I was also helped tremendously throughout the whole project by Jumana (Abboud), Khadijeh (Kananbo) and Raedah (Saadeh) at al Ma’mal.

3. What were the main challenges during your stay at Al-Ma'mal?
The challenge was not with the workshop but with the project I did for my residency. This was a repeat of the Streetwise project in Rotterdam except doing it in Jerusalem seemed trickier because I imagined it was possible I would get arrested for such a project.

The project works on a number of levels. Plain suits are painted so that they are camouflaged in the area overlooked by surveillance cameras. This is filmed by a camera attached to the real surveillance cameras so the video will have more or less the same perspective as the surveillance film.

I had already sent plain white suits to Jerusalem and then I looked for good locations. Kamal was right - the streets in the old city were all monitored. Sometimes I wasn’t sure there were really people watching some of the cameras I found because they looked so old and dusty.

The first lot of suits I painted I used my own camera. For the final photo and video work a friend and professional camerawoman Jutta Tränkle came from Berlin to help. We worked five days very intensively and at the end the police did come.

Being both artist and Europeans made a difference but it’s a tricky thing in this situation. What I found very interesting was how some of the police actually seemed to like the idea of what we were doing. It was also very interesting to see how Israelis and Palestinians connect. Before you go there you think the situation is black and white but the reality and the practicalities are very different. People are in close proximity and in daily contact so they have to find a way of living together.

4. What impact did the experience have on your work?
Underlying this project was an existing and ongoing theme in my work. I am wary of artists just turning up in a situation like this, doing a project and then showing it in a gallery back in Europe. For me it was a repetition of Streetwise in a different environment so it wasn’t just a product of the situation in Jerusalem.

My interest comes from the idea of fear as a selling point that legitimises increasing surveillance. In the case of Europe it is sold as something that is for protection and for the good of the population but it is about control, power and investment. This is something that concerns us all and I think the degree of surveillance in Israel was an indication at that time of where we were heading. So the project helped to develop this idea.

Al-Ma'mal was the first and only time I did a workshop with kids but I have recently begun planning another workshop with young people in Istanbul. It’s not something I usually think about but young people especially like my work so I am hoping to do a similar project next year. The workshop was an integral part of the residency with al-Ma’mal and I think it is a very good thing.

5. What are your strongest memories of your time there?
As I mentioned earlier the thing that struck me most strongly was that all the people in Palestine and Israel ultimately have no choice but to live together. It made a very strong impact. After being there I thought about it all in a very different way from before. I saw the huge connection there between east and west and how much it is all there in European history. I didn’t realise that until then.

It is great that Al-Ma’mal opens the door like this for international artists. It is a very good way to create possibilities for artists whatever kind of work they do.

ARTIST WEBSITE

DESIREE PALMEN

Artist-in-Residence – Wafaa Yasin 2006

2010-09-15T22:24:00.002+02:00

Wafaa Yasin was born in the Galilee in 1980. She recently completed an MFA in Fine Arts and Social Practice at the California College of the Arts. She conducted a workshop for Al-Ma’mal in 2006.

1. How did you first get involved with Al-Ma'mal?

Al-Ma'mal was the only organisation that was active in Jerusalem and the only independent Palestinian organisation interested in this kind of thing so I was always aware what they doing and often went to their events. I got involved after I graduated from Bezalel in 2005. I met Khadijeh [Kanambo] right after I graduated and she suggested I apply for the workshop programme. I wanted to work with something like this rather than work with an Israeli arts organisation so I submitted a proposal. I talked about performance art and using the body as a medium and proposed teaching them as potential young artists rather than just kids doing a workshop. I was interested in how I could use the workshop to make art a part of daily life in the sense that they could create at anytime beyond our weekly meetings. So they could think of this workshop as the start of their own art career if they decided to become a professional artist one day. For me they were young artists already.

In my interview I talked about why I was interested in Al-Ma’mal, how I wanted to use my knowledge with the kids and also how I could explore my own creativity at the same time. I was really interested in giving the kids a new understanding of contemporary art that allowed for multi-creativity. I wanted an organisation that would support this.

I was always interested in teaching but the problem was that other opportunities were very much controlled by a system. At Bezalel part of the course involved a programme in high schools but there was not really an appreciation of contemporary art and the art of expression. There were classroom and curriculum rules and conventions of teaching that was not as challenging. I registered with the school board and briefly taught an after school programme but I could not teach in the way I needed to.

The fact Al-Ma’mal had mixed groups of kids from Jerusalem was also very interesting for me. Because of the political situation I felt that they could really have a lot to say and to express. I wanted to show them how to use the body in the creation of an art work and also how any materials can be used as art. I always went to lots of different stores and brought all sorts of weird materials together to show them how they could create something out of absolutely anything.

2. Can you tell me something about how you conducted your workshop and how you got so many different and interesting results?
I started from basics – drawing. I brought a mirror in for each kid and got them to start drawing themselves in a simple way. Then I moved on to painting and photography and then I started to bring the materials from the different stores in Jerusalem. I would give then a theme often connected with identity or memory and link that to the streets of the city itself. For example, I told them to take a walk with a camera and search for something related to them or their own interests in the city. It could be anything but they had to come back with a series of images that had a concept they could identify – it could not be random like a tourist. After this experiment with stills narrative we talked about how to create a video piece. One super creative student wanted to just play with a ball through the Old City starting from New Gate [near Al-Ma’mal]. He would move through the crowds playing with the ball while someone documented his journey. It was a performance based completely in the city and this was not an easy thing to do either physically or culturally.

In some classes I talked about other artists and how they used their bodies as tools for art. I showed them Mona Hatoum’s videos [Them and us…. and other divisions (1984] in which she crawled on the street. It was very easy for them to understand her performance and one student was so interested in this performance he wanted to imitate what Mona Hatoum did but in the Old City. He wore a mask because he didn’t want to be distracted by the crowd and he started crawling. He was also covered in fabric so he couldn’t see anything. This meant that the other kids had to lead him and film him so it became a collaborative group exercise.

Sometimes I chose locations for specific reasons. We had filmed in the Christian and Muslim quarters of the Old City but I also took the kids to film in the Jewish quarter. I didn’t want to them to be afraid and I wanted to make them express themselves in areas that they didn’t feel they belonged. This also gave them a different audience. They were super creative there as well. They had an open space near David’s Citadel and their mission was to create a video.

My method was always to bring a few basic materials that they could use as props if they needed them. In this case I had some tape. First they made a frame on the wall from the tape and then picked small flowers and started painting in the frame in the wall. Then one student created a circle and put it in a tree so that the top of the tower was behind it from a certain perspective. All of the ideas came from them but the point for me was to let them understand that in order to make a performance you don’t need more than your body.

Everyone would stand and watch as the kids worked and this made them very happy. I really felt that the city needed these kids and that they needed more freedom and opportunity just to do things like this. The simple act of expressing themselves in their own city created a nice environment. Many people asked them what they were doing and this made them really proud because they were not used to receiving positive attention. Most were so creative and I really felt that I had helped to open this gate for expression even though it was very hard at the beginning.

3. What were the main challenges during your workshop?
The most challenging thing was how to keep the group together while also treating everyone individually and working out when to be involved and when I needed to withdraw. They were very different people and also different ages so addressing this balance between group and individual was sometimes hard. However, I usually gave them the same mission but got them to do it in a different way with different materials. Another challenge was how to keep it interesting and enjoyable while also getting them to understand and embrace the reality that there are tedious parts of being an artist or indeed being anything in life.

4. Do you have any other observations about your workshops or about Al-Ma'mal itself?
All the participants surprised me but I think the freedom I had to explore ideas, methods and materials helped me get the best out of them. Al-Ma'mal gave me a space in which I was completely free to act and I didn’t have to compromise on what the creative possibilities were. I also enjoyed the fact that in the final project I got the kids themselves to come with proposals and Al-Ma’mal was totally open to try and facilitate their ideas. Nothing was ever ruled out until it had at least been tried. The final exhibition very conceptual and made you ask yourself questions. Visually it looked beautiful too with all kinds of material and all kinds of work ideas and installation.

It was a great start for me personally right after graduating. I didn’t only learn how I could build a workshop and build up a group but I also learned a lot in terms of understanding myself and my own forms of expression through the workshops.

Wafaa Yasin Interview – August 5th 2010

Artist-in-Residence Interview – Alban Biaussat 2006

2010-09-14T17:04:00.001+02:00

In 2006, Al-Ma’mal very efficiently utilised many of its artists-in-residence as contributors to the workshop, exhibitions and creative encounters programmes. As well as being residents Alban Biaussat, Wafa Yassin, Desiree Palmen, Mario Rizzi, Alain Gignoux and Nikolaj Skyum Bendix Larsen either gave artist’ talks, conducted workshops or had exhibitions. In some cases all three. A’laa Khanjar also conducted a workshop in 2006.

What follows are transcripts of interviews conducted with several of the Artists-in-Residence during this period. First Alban Biaussat.

1. How did you first get involved with Al Ma'mal?

I first contacted Al Ma'mal upon my arrival in Jerusalem in July 2002, (I came for other professional motives), as I was looking into the local art scene, searching for some sort of organisation or platform to associate with in order to engage in a photo / art projects. I had no particular idea of what I wanted to do at the time, and was mostly looking for other people to discuss and do something with. It took me a couple of years to have the idea of the Green(er) Side of the Line project and about a year to do it, on my own. I only came back to Al Ma'mal once I had shot most of the photos, to show them my project and see what we could do about it. They found it interesting and decided to support its post-production and the organisation of an exhibition within the framework of their residency programme.

2. What were the main challenges during your residency / workshop at Al Ma'mal?
As I was already living in Jerusalem, I did not need the usual support of a residency programme in Palestine. My understanding is that Al Mamal typically does not finance the post production of residency projects but the realisation parts. In my case it was the opposite and it proved most useful as that was what i most needed to take my idea and work out to the public. Al Ma'mal people helped with the editing of the exhibition, financed the costs of high quality scanning, printing and mounting, organised the exhibition in their space in the Old City for over two months, and helped organise other solo shows in Ramallah (Sakakini Centre) and with Birzeit's art museum. On my side i agreed to participate in their workshop series involving 10-20 Palestinian kids from Jerusalem. Al Mamal works with great cultural staff who contributed a lot to the workshops and helped me manage the participants and with translations in Arabic.

The objective of this series of workshop was to bring these kids, aged 7-16 if i remember correctly, to create some work related to the Green Line, either as a visual production and/or as an interpretation of the notion of border, separation etc. During first workshops, we showed them other relevant art works, i explained to them my Green Line project, we then encouraged them to work on imagining and sketching the creations they would like to produce. I also gave them an introduction to photography and encouraged them to practice. We then went for an entire afternoon in a park where they realised their ideas. A group worked using their bodies, others with natural elements, and a third group with artificial materials, and all took photos of their realisations. These were printed and the final workshop was dedicated to discussing the results and selecting which ideas and works to finally exhibit. Overall, i very much appreciated this experience, for i think, some of the kids at least, have enjoyed it too ! The main challenge, or say my main regret, was that i could not directly engage fully with many of them because of the language barrier.

3. What impact did the experience have on your own work?
It was important, in the sense that it gave me confidence in exploring further my photo documentary practice, which insists on a large degree of creativity, backed with solid content and analysis, to deal with complex and polarized issues. I also appreciated the support and liberty that Al Mamal gave me to organise activities on the side of the Green Line project and exhibition, from film screenings, debate with Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, to the renting of a bus to take 50 people along the line. Mixing art with other forms of expressions, whether official, serious or recreative, to promote an idea or illustrate complex situations, has been a matter of sustained interest on my side. Although, they were many other reasons for my choice to leave Jerusalem in late 2006, to return to Europe and develop my photography further, this experience has contributed a great deal to it. I have since produced several other bodies of work, which follow the same ambition and practice, several about Palestine and Israel again. Al Mamal later agreed to exhibit one of them, called Rainbow Stickers, in its first edition of the Jerusalem Show in 2008.

4. What are your strongest memories of your time there?
I have strong memories of the realisation part, when i used to travel all around the territory, putting my ribbons and green balls in various places, which led me into a few comic or unexpected situations. But i guess a strong memory of my collaboration with Al Mamal has been when i finally saw the Green Line exhibit up on the walls. After 2 or 3 years thinking about this project and imagining how best to represent an invisible border, quite unsure of my choice until the end, i expected that it could work, or not, depending on general impression that one would have seeing all these photos with their green ribbons and balls when exhibited together. One photo or two could have been sufficient to promote the concept, but systematically representing the line in its various locations, and showing a quite important number of images (55 in the exhibition) all with a green reference gives this work more documentary credibility and reinforces its visual force and coherence. And i was rather pleased with the results, also because of the quality of the printing and mounting of the photographs. But of course, if i had to do it again now, i might change a few things...

5. Do you have any additional comments about Al-Ma'mal and the art scene in Jerusalem at that time?

I spent 5 years in Jerusalem, working on policy matters related to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, in parallel with my activities as a photographer. This has certainly affected the way i lived my time here and how perceived the place, but it has also given me access to many different situations. I left Jerusalem in late 2006 with a feeling that almost everything had been already written, said or argued about this conflict, which was trapped in words, and sometimes in representations of anecdotes. The reality of course for those who live it daily is another thing. The last interesting tool for resistance and pacification, in a context of war of information led by spins on all sides, seemed to me to be creativity and some sense of humour and mockery, to promote alternative views. All of which can be best mixed together and promoted in art. I was then interested to see how both Israelis and Palestinians seemed to fight this war of information with growing references to cultural and fashionable productions. This seemed to me as having a great potential, especially on the Palestinian side, to change so many widespread perceptions. Therefore, i have always valued Al Mamal's work and objectives, in addition to its invaluable contribution to bring some ceative light to the Palestinian neighborhoods and people of East Jerusalem. By the time I left, it was my impression that the Palestinian cultural scene was gaining momentum, with new centres, galleries, festivals etc opening in East Jerusalem, the West Bank as well as internationally, all of which deserve to be encouraged as much as possible, not forgetting Gaza.

Alban Biassat
Interview July 2010
WEBSITE
http://www.albanbiaussat.com/indexprojects.html

Creative Encounters 2005

2010-09-11T18:05:00.000+03:00

Workshops in 2005 were mostly conducted by the in-house expertise of Jumana Abboud and Raeda Saadeh plus an additional photography workshop conducted by Wissam Faraj. All the work produced was given its own exhibition at Al-Ma’mal. Another aspect of Al-Ma’mal which became much more active in these years was the Creative Encounters Programme which consisted of artist talks, film screenings and debates. Most of the resident artists at this point gave talks about their work in the context of their residency exhibitions, but there were also talks by visiting writers, journalists and photographers. These included people such as British photographer J.C. Tordai whose images taken in Palestine over a period of more than 20 years remain among the most iconic images of the place and the people.

The films screened as part of the Creative Encounters covered a wide international range and included the works of directors such as Peter Greenaway, Samira Makmalbahf, Krystof Kieslowski and Emir Kusturica.

Palestine also made several films of its own during this period through the ‘Swiss-Palestinian Film Encounters’. This project was a collaboration between Al-Ma’mal and two film production houses in Switzerland – AKKA Films and LAGO Films. A series of workshops on documentary scriptwriting, directing and cinema were conducted with a group of 24 young Palestinians in Ramallah. The project involved Geneva filmmaker Nicolas Wadimoff and three other Swiss film professionals: Fernand Melgar, Jean Perret and Joëlle Comé. The team along with Palestinian co-ordinators such as photographer and filmmaker Issa Freij worked with the group over a period of six months and then invited proposals from the participants for short films on the theme of ‘Mt Home’. Five were selected and provided a unique opportunity for young filmmakers to conceive, develop and successfully complete their own documentary films.

The Fourth Room by Nahed Awwad
Abu Jamil owns a bookshop in Ramallah. Nothing has changed in his shop since the 1960s. The filmmaker asks him about his dreams and his troubles, about Nasser and the Palestine of earlier years, and about… the secret room, where precious pictures of the past are kept.

The Guardian of Boredom by Mazen Saadeh
Mazen works as an employee in the offices of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Although there is nothing to do, the employees are obliged to put in their hours under the watchful eye of a department head, who is very strict about schedules.

Summer of ’85 by Rowan al Faquih
There is nothing left on this patch of land. At most a few stones and an almond tree. Yet it was here that Rowan spent the most peaceful days of her childhood, surrounded by the love of her grandparents and her cousin from America. One day, war broke out…

Second Halftime by Saed Abu Hmud
“The football club is my home,” says Saed Abu Hmud, the film’s director. Originally from Bethlehem, he takes us on a trip down the memory lane of his childhood to the football field of the Catholic community of Salesian brothers. Through his recollections of those years, the first Intifada is depicted.

East To West by Enas Muthaffar
A wall is being built. Enas’s family are compelled to move, otherwise they will find themselves on the wrong side. She was born in the apartment they must now leave behind. Her father was born in a house at Jaffa that he was forced to abandon in 1948. Each generation has had to face a move…

J.C. Tordai

Anne-Marie Filaire - Artist in Residence 2004 / 2005

2010-08-30T18:56:00.000+03:00

1. How did you first get involved with Al-Ma'mal?

I met Jack Persekian in Paris at the end of 2000. The year before I had began photographing landscapes in Palestine and I was presenting at that time, the exhibition, “Jerusalem Jericho Gaza”, in Paris. We remained in contact. In March 2004, Al-Ma’mal presented the exhibition “Deserted Spaces” (work done at the border between Eritrea and Ethiopa) and invited me to be artist-in-residence. It was a time of great tension, the construction of the wall was beginning and contact between the populations had broken down. It was at this moment that I began to record the changes in the landscape around Jerusalem, to note down and to photograph the landscapes in order to preserve the memory of the places. I continued this work over time, anticipating the next stage, confinement.

2. What were the main challenges of working in Jerusalem and Palestine?

Working in Jerusalem and Palestine meant a long-term engagement - confronting this violence and the necessity of acting as a witness to it. I must point out that I have always worked with the two sides, in Israel and also in the Occupied Territories and that my work is situated within this movement. It was an investigation of transfers, I didn't want to represent this confinement, but rather work within it.

What remains in the images is a spreading out of space while paradoxically the same space was closing in on itself. The description of forms and space of these frontier zones, above all acts as witness to the violence done to the landscape, and to the occupation and the destruction. The challenge was to keep the project going over time, to have the rigour necessary for the working process on the ground, as the landscape, under the grip of a strategy of occupation and confinement was constantly transforming. Following this, the challenge was, for me, to liberate myself from this 'time'.

3. What are your strongest memories of the residency / working period with Al-Ma'mal?

A very particular atmosphere, the emptiness of Jerusalem, the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas in Gaza, the spreading of the news of his death throughout the Old City and then the 3 days of mourning. The unseen violence. Working with Al-Ma’mal and having the feeling that you are at home, the necessity of putting the creation at the centre of your life, as a possible way out. Al-Ma’mal participated in this work over time as I returned twice for the residency - at the end of 2004 and again in 2005 to work on the ground.

4. Did the experience have an impact on your subsequent work?

This experience has been at the heart of my journey in landscapes and frontier spaces because it has meant a ten year in the field engagement. It is situated among other experiences, other spaces, other frontiers, other conflict zones within which I have worked around the world. But this experience has been the “fil rouge” (guiding line).

Anne-Marie Filaire, Paris, August 2010

Ayreen Anastas - 2004

2010-08-28T19:03:00.002+03:00

In 2004 Ayreen Anastas proposed a project that would reflect upon the Italian director Pasolini's visit to Palestine in 1962 for his film "Seeking Locations in Palestine for the Gospel According to St. Matthew". The video project she produced titled, Pasolini Pa* Palestine turned Pasolini's script into a road map superimposed on Palestine's landscape.

At the time Anastas stated the following about the work:

The video explores questions of repetition and establishes a dialogue with Pasolini. For Heidegger repetition/retrieval are terms for an appropriate attitude toward the past while the term discutere (to smash to pieces) is the Latin source for dialogue / discussion. The video does not criticise Pasolini but rather reveals the possibilities in his thought processes and works back to the 'experiences' which inspired them.' (Ayreen Anastas 2004)

Phil Collins - They Shoot Horses

2010-08-14T15:27:00.000+03:00

It all started I suppose with my writing to Jack Persekian. Jack is the director of the Al-Ma’mal Foundation in Jerusalem. But still, I didn’t know whether he’d be interested in my idea to organize, execute and film a disco dance marathon in Ramallah, which would afterwards be exhibited as a real-time video artwork. In fact, I thought he’d hate it. Something so dumb and frivolous which spoke precisely about exhaustion, collapse and heroism but in a palette of Pop Idol colours.

When we think about Palestine it never seems to be in reference to modernity, or culture; in fact, it’s relentlessly positioned as uncivilised. The disco dance marathon would instead be a way of looking at beauty under duress, entertainment in place of routine indignities. Ten days later and I’m standing in a community centre over the road from the local mosque with Iman Hammouri, the director of the Popular Art Centre, holding auditions where I play Beyonce and Joy Division over and over. And the dancers are heart- stoppingly beautiful. They take your breath away - shy and awkward but when they rock, they really flip out.

I choose nine and I filmed two groups over successive days dancing to the same soundtrack, from northern soul to acid house, from Love Hangover to Xanadu, from 10am to 6pm without breaks. Or so I thought. I take the role of cheerleader, DJ, cameraman, bouncer. I’m like a one-man band but with more to do. Have you ever tried to dance for eight hours? It’s a killer. There’s a kind of madness or cabin fever which slowly descends upon a group. It’s insane. In the finished film they do aerobics, they do folk dancing to Gina X. Someone starts dry-retching at Aretha Franklin. They do belly dancing to The Smiths. Later on, they fall asleep to Fame. They’ve almost had it, stumbling about like drunks, bags under their eyes as Irene Cara rattles on in the background. It’s halfway through a Bananarama song in the second hour when we hear the first call to prayer which punctuates the video as we turn the music off and wait until it’s appropriate to put Primal Scream back on.

I’d also not counted on the power cuts. On the second day, the whole of Ramallah goes down. We’re left sitting in a shuttered room with everybody telling me how this is completely normal, and would I like a piece of fruit? Except that I’m getting back on the plane the next day and I know that half the dancers have to get through checkpoints which close at nine. Of course I did have the piece of fruit, and also a silent nervous breakdown. The end of each day had me in tears. The dancers showed such fortitude, resilience, grace and, most importantly, had better, sharper moves than any I’d ever seen. I wanted everyone who saw it to fall in love with them, to admire their perseverance, and to wonder why it should seem odd to us if they knew the words to Althea & Donna’s Uptown Top Ranking. The last track they dance to is quite rightly Olivia Newton John’s Xanadu. For me there really is a heroism to live in a place it’s impossible to leave, to be split from families, imprisoned by a Berlin wall and, maybe worst of all, to be forgotten by a world which refuses to understand you.

Phil Collins (2004)
Text from Artist-in-Residence Archives

Artists-in-Residence-2003

2010-08-10T18:30:00.002+03:00

The Tamkeen Workshop grant had run from 2002 - 2004 and covered a total of nine workshops. Owing to changes in USAID itself the grant was no longer available after that period so could not be extended. However. Al-Ma’mal continued to get valuable support from long-time partner, the Ford Foundation and ongoing funding also from the European Commission. A new supporter, the Open Society Institute, also came on board in 2004 enabling the Al-Ma’mal team to continue all of its core activities.

The Artist-in-Residence programme had being running parallel to the workshops and remained very successful throughout this whole period with only one project failing to get off the ground. This was the project of Ayse Erkemen who had proposed to work with Qalqilya Zoo, and particularly with their taxidermied animals. The two things that interested her, were firstly how the ‘freezing’ of life in the zoo had transformed it into a natural history museum and secondly the stories behind each of these animals that were often deeply sad but surreal and funny at the same time.

Brownie the giraffe dying while fleeing from the sounds of a gunfire, falling down and breaking his neck. Ten days later his pregnant partner Rudi having a miscarriage because of sorrow and then Brownie and his unborn giraffe son being stuffed to stand together in a special exhibition space inside the zoo.

Due to incursions and curfews imposed on Qalqilya by the Israeli army at the time of her residency in 2003/04, it was impossible to enter the city so Erkeman could not realize this project. However, the tale of the giraffe emerged along with several other strange news stories relating to Qalqilya Zoo during this period. The Zoo was celebrated in a 2008 book by Amelie Thomas entitled: Zoo on the Road to Nablus: A Story of Survival from the West Bank.

Other artists-in-residence in 2003 included Jananne Al-Ani, Rosalind Nashashibi and Zeyad Dajani whose images of King Hussein's half built and abandoned palace are below.

Artist-in-Residence - Emily Jacir 2002

2010-08-06T19:14:00.012+03:00

Emily Jacir’s residency project explored the very personal idea of displacement that so many Palestinians have to live with. Where We Come From/(Im)mobility was a based on the artist’s ‘freedom of movement’ as a Palestinian with an American passport. Jacir utilized her passport to access Palestine for Palestinians who are denied the freedom to go to their own homeland and/or to move freely within it. The starting point of the project was a question addressed to Palestinians living in exile: "If I could do anything for you, anywhere in Palestine, what would it be?"

Jacir asked people to send their requests of what they wanted her to do and with her ‘golden ticket’ (her U.S. passport), she was able to move freely, circumventing barriers and connecting people to their homeland, their wishes, their dreams. In the very act of connecting people to their homeland by fulfilling their requests, the work ascertained and documented their disconnection as well.

The final form her project took was an installation consisting of photos, a DVD projection and text of requests she had been sent, including the following:

"Go to Haifa and play soccer with the first Palestinian boy you see on the street."

"Drink the water in my parents' village."

"Go to Bayt Lahia and bring me a photo of my family, specially of my brother's kids."

"Go to the Israeli post office in Jerusalem and pay my phone bill."

"Go to my mother's grave in Jerusalem on her birthday and place flowers and pray."

"Do something on a normal day in Haifa, something I might do if I was living there now."

Workbook - The Tamkeen Workshops 2002-2004

2010-07-29T19:02:00.008+03:00

In 2004 Al-Ma’mal published Workbook as a document of the Tamkeen workshop phase. As with all of Al-Ma'mal's publications, this important record is a work of art in its own right. It incorporates text from Jumana Abboud’s workshop diaries, detailed descriptions of Faten Nastas’s Bethlehem story projects and numerous images from their workshops and those of Luc Chery, Jawad Al-Malhi and Tina Sherwell. Often superimposing text onto the images it also references key movements in contemporary art illustrating clearly how these were incorporated into the workshops and then translated back into clear and unique individual projects.

In Jack Persekian's introduction to Workbook, he not only highlights the practical reasons for the shift of emphasis that occurred with the Tamkeen workshops, but also elaborates on one of the fundamental premises upon which they were based:

We are constantly bombarded with images and visuals – TV, internet, advertisement, packaging, magazines, presentations etc. Yet we see that our society is not part of that, is not part of the production of these visuals, this information exchange, this means of communication. We are lagging behind with the means, the tools, the know-how and the capabilities to be part of it. We ought to be frightened by the fact that, at this rate, we will always be left behind, never able to catch up with the rest of the developed world: dragging our feet. (Jack Persekian, Workbook, 2004)

What is striking about this statement is the complete absence of any specific situational conditionals especially notable because the Tamkeen workshops coincided with some of the bloodiest events of the second intifada period. The approach taken is one of normality, one that can perceive the future needs of a potential national entity in a global context and as such, can identify skills it will need as a matter of course. The essence of the Tamkeen workshops was to take participants through the whole process of creativity by examining how other artists had worked and how to read and understand the things they had created. This meant formulating and discussing ideas, contextualising them and only then learning the skills that enabled a realisation of their own ideas in the most effective or appropriate way.

This made the workshops comprehensive vehicles for introducing and promoting an awareness of visual literacy as well as providing exposure to practical creative skills. In the process they became an early deposit against Jack Persekian’s fears of a future visual deficit.

Workbook Images

Tamkeen in Bethlehem - Faten Nastas

2010-07-18T14:31:00.000+03:00

Most of the Tamkeen workshops were conducted in the Old City of Jerusalem. Although several were held at the premises of Al-Ma’mal itself, partner institutions also hosted the workshops. Jumana Abboud taught at the Burj Al Laqlaq Centre, Raeda Saadeh at the Old City Youth Association, St. Dimitri’s Orthodox School and St. Mark’s Syrian Orthodox Youth Club and Jawad Al-Malhi and Tina Sherwell taught at the Spafford Children’s Centre. However, Al-Ma’mal’s good relationship with institutions in Bethlehem meant that there were also workshops conducted there. One of these, an introduction to contemporary art, was facilitated by Faten Nastas at the International Centre of Bethlehem.

1.What were you doing in 2003 and how did you first get involved with Al-Ma'mal's Bethlehem workshop?
Since August 1998, I had been working as the Art Co-ordinator at the International Centre in Bethlehem (ICB). I was responsible for all the activities related to Contemporary Fine Art and to Craft as well. As part of my work, I helped in establishing the "The Cave" Arts & Crafts centre (in Arabic it is called al-Kahf), especially the "Cave Gallery", and the Cave workshop complex. Al-Kahf Centre belongs to the ICB.

The staff of al-Ma'mal, especially Jack Persekian & Jumana Abboud, had known me since I was a student at Bezalel Academy. I graduated from Bezalel in 1998 so kept a good relationship with them and they were aware of my work in Bethlehem.

2. Can you tell me about your approach to the workshop and how you got such varied results?
I had different and various ideas for the workshop. However, my main goal was to introduce the youth to the ‘wide world of the Contemporary Art’, and encourage them to explore new languages for expressing themselves and ideas. So, my approach was more theoretical and philosophical at the beginning. I showed them different works of famous contemporary artists, different techniques, concepts and topics. We had lots of discussions. Then, the second half of the course was practical: after discussing with the youth various ideas, and after choosing their topic and their desired language, I worked as a facilitator helping them or directing them to the know-how and the technicalities of making their work.

3. What were the main challenges during your workshop?
After such a long time, and after celebrating a very successful activity, it is difficult to remember the challenges. I think that my enthusiasm about it was much more than the challenges. However, I remember that in some discussions, it was difficult to reach a few of the young participants. I mean that they were not so open-minded, and heir way of thinking, as well as their work, was not able to embrace something more deep and profound.

Besides, I remember that in the last few sessions, it was hard for me to follow and help each participant individually. It took more time and effort than I expected. But, this is of course due to the technical variety. I remember that 2 students did video works, others did photography, others installation, and there was also sound installation. So, each participant had different demands and I was their only guide.

4. What are your strongest memories of this period?
My strongest memory is how we used to discuss "Art issues", also personal stories and critiques of society. The group of students were great and the majority were very open-minded and spoke about personal stories very openly. This encouraged everyone to take the course seriously and profoundly. It was also like a "soul healing workshop". I was also very happy to see how determined the participants were, they were very proud of themselves and they really worked hard to complete their work and to do the final installation. I will never forget how proud they were during the opening, when they shared the outcome with their families and friends.

5.Did the experience have any impact on your subsequent work?
The experience was enjoyable and I think it empowered me to work more with youth. The following year we had a very successful project at the ICB, where we worked with more than 150 students from different 10 local schools, using "Installation Art as an Advocacy tool for Youth Concerns". Also as part of my work at the ICB, I was a member of the team who worked on the establishment of the Dar al-Kalima College. Today, I am the chairperson of the Visual Arts Department, and I enjoy very much working more and more with Youth and adults. I am sure that this had also an impact on my individual work as an artist, but, I am not sure if I can define it now.

I also have become an observer of Art in Jerusalem and in Palestine. I give lectures about the "Art in Palestine" in our College and abroad. I have actually just come back from an international conference in Sweden where I gave 3 lectures about Contemporary Palestinian Art.

Interview - Jumana Abboud

2010-07-13T13:34:00.001+03:00

All of the Tamkeen workshops were specifically directed at young people and were held in partnership with a number of schools, youth clubs and organisations in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. One of the first artists to be engaged for the Tamkeen workshops was Jumana Abboud who taught on site at the Burj Al Laqlaq centre in the Old City, as well as conducting numerous workshops at Al-Ma’mal itself. Her involvement with Al-Ma’mal was to become permanent. After the workshops were completed she remained at the foundation and is today the longest serving member of permanent staff.

1. How did you first get involved with Al-Ma’mal?

I came back to Jerusalem from Canada in 1991. I am originally from the Galilee but wanted to continue art studies at that time and the only possibility for me was to study at the Bezalel Institute in West Jerusalem so I applied for a scholarship. I didn't get it but I stayed and studied there anyway. In 1994 I was walking on Salahuddin Street and it was the afternoon of the opening of Jean Luc Vilmouth's exhibition. I’ll never forget how excited I was to see it. I felt so relieved. After four years of studying at Bezalel, where there was no contact with Palestinian art, here was a very contemporary exhibition related to Palestine happening right on Salahuddin Street. After that I was a regular visitor to Anadiel so that’s how I made the connection.

In 2002 Al-Ma'mal received the Tamkeen workshop grant and it was through this project that I became involved with Al-Ma'mal. Jack invited me and Raeda Sadeh to conduct different workshops at youth centres in the Old City. I taught contemporary art at the Burj al Laqlaq community centre to groups of children aged from 11 – 16. It was mostly painting and drawing. I kept a diary of the workshops and I gave it to Al-Ma'mal as a report of how the workshop was. Sections of it are used in ‘Workbook’ published in 2004 which is an account of Al-Ma’mal activities from 2000 onwards.

2. What were the main challenges in the workshops?

My challenge was to find a way of accessing the students’ imaginations. It was like they had lost the ability to imagine even though some of them were very young. The first thing they would draw would be Al-Aqsa Mosque or a Palestinian flag or a soldier: always something that related not only to reality but specifically to political reality. All their reference points were political and what they drew reflected all the symbols of the conflict and the political context. There were no visions of imagined things. I think this inability to imagine may also partly relate to the local school system as well which is very much focused on rote and passive rather than creative learning.

Also every time you have new group the ice breaking can be the most difficult part and it is also more difficult if they are older. Teenagers especially are resistant to opening up. From teaching workshops I went on to help organise them and one of the things we noticed with all instructors was that the initial workshops were always tough. There was a process through which we had to overcome their defensiveness before they broke down enough to let their imaginations through.

3. How did you deal with these challenges?

It became about practice and making that practice available to the participants. I tried not to be judgemental because then you risk pushing your own visions and not extracting theirs. However, in the end it worked. After a lot of practice I was getting wonderful results and beautiful paintings. I think the most successful were the animal drawings and the paintings influenced by Gustav Klimt. I used images as reference points. I thought of Klimt because he was so colourful so I took the approach of introducing the students to contemporary art through colour.

4. What are your strongest memories of the workshops?
The feedback - what they were all really happy about was the exhibition and the book [Workbook, 2004]. We gave them a group exhibition of their work as did Raeda and others. These always made them feel good. They would bring their family and their friends and they would be so proud. We try up to the present to show a balance of all the participants’ work and it encourages them and makes then want more.

5. How did the staff profile change after the Tamkeen project?

Khadijeh Kanambo had been full time since 1998 and maybe even a little before that. She left in November/December 2009 (hopefully on temporary leave only!). Raeda Sadeh worked in the gallery part-time with Jack before she came to Al-Ma’mal but both Raeda and I started part-time with the workshops in 2002. I then returned as a full-time member of staff in autumn 2003 and Raeda signed up as full time in 2004. She was assistant coordinator of projects but she left in the spring of 2009.

6. How has your work with Al-Ma’mal affected your own art practice/work?

It’s positive that I work in a place that respects me as an artist. It’s a place that encourages my creative development. It’s advantageous to work in an environment that has the same spirit as what I, as an artist, love to do: make art. And it’s a privilege also because at Al-Ma’mal, we focus on making other artist’s projects a success, so I learn to look at the creative process differently and through an administrator’s eye and this help me invent for myself and for my own work a sort of disciplinary formula.

The Tamkeen Workshops

2010-06-28T15:49:00.003+03:00

As noted earlier, the generous Ford Foundation grant in 1998 enabled Al-Ma’mal to start up and had covered the first two years of its activities. Subsequent grants from Ford followed and the Foundation remains one of Al-Ma’mal’s strongest sponsors to this day.

Another longstanding relationship is with the Consulate General of France in Jerusalem, a supporter from the very early days when Anadiel and the French Cultural Centre were neighbours on Salahuddin. Such cooperation and practical support from foreign consulates and cultural centres in Jerusalem has been a consistent feature in the life of both Anadiel and Al-Ma’mal. In the early 2000s in particular, funding was mostly secured in the form of small development grants or from cultural cooperation budgets. These included grants from the Society for Austro-Arab Relations (SAAR), World Vision and the European Commission. Although these could not provide for the scope of activities that bodies such as Ford could enable, they covered almost all of the artist-in residence workshops and exhibitions between 2000 and 2002, and also contributed to essential running costs. A relationship established with the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) at this time also continued for several years. In 2002, however, an opportunity arose to submit a proposal for another major injection of workshop funding:

After Bethlehem 2000 I quit the arts sector for a while and got my next job at USAID. Eventually in 2002 I went to London to do my masters but during this time I wrote a funding proposal which Jack submitted to Tamkeen, a development programme working under the USAID umbrella. This had no direct connection to my job but it was useful because I understood through working there exactly what Tamkeen and USAID wanted from this project and it fitted exactly with what Al Ma'mal could do. (Samar Martha, 2010)

This made a new series of workshops both feasible and timely and meant that they could be properly planned incorporating all the experience from the workshops undertaken in the first four years. It also meant that specific artist-tutors could be employed on a longer term basis than residency artists and thus develop in-house expertise and an evolving teaching programme.

All Change - Jawad Al-Malhi and Tina Sherwell 2001 - 2002

2010-06-16T18:13:00.000+03:00

When assessing the results of the first three years of workshops, it was evident that there needed to be a greater range of learning activities, more focus on group interaction and wider participation. As a consequence Al-Ma’mal decided to diversify and expand the workshops to encompass various forms of visual art. The possibilities included experimentation in drawing, painting, collage, clay, installation, and video as well as photography. Artists employed to design and deliver the workshops were encouraged to utilize whatever approach, medium and technique they thought would best serve the purpose, while also following Al-Ma’mal’s overall objectives.

As a consequence four new workshops were launched in 2001 with two new partners: the Spafford Children’s Centre and the Burj Al-Laqlaq centre. All four workshops were conducted by Palestinian Artist Jawad Al-Malhi and his wife, British artist, writer and educator Dr. Tina Sherwell.

Jawad al Malhi had begun painting in the late 80s and exhibited at Anadiel in 1994. He was close to the developments that took place in those early days and his comments about that time echo observations made by others:

In those days there were few Palestinian artists and those there were tended to be ‘state ‘artists whose work was entirely about the political cause. Politics was the reason not the art. So when Jack first talked about opening Anadiel I thought it was a crazy idea. However, when artists from outside like Mona [Hatoum], Samir [Srouji] and Nasser [Soumi] came it was fantastic. As an artist on the ground I felt that politics was not our job anymore. I was starting to focus on concepts and at that time, and with that kind of input, you felt free.

Al-Malhi and Sherwell took a completely different approach to the workshops based on the assumption that an artist has very different skills to a teacher thus the interaction with the children should be more organic than formally instructional.

Rather than ‘teaching’ as such, we saw it as artists working with children in order to get them to explore their own creativity - more explaining and facilitating than teaching.

The workshops took place over a longer period so that skills could be built up gradually which was also intended to create deeper bonds within the groups themselves:

As well as the art the point was to bring the different communities in Jerusalem into one place, so we were trying to create a social atmosphere and actually build up commonalities and cohesion among the youth in the communities. They built a very strong relationship between each other and they spent a lot of time together afterwards. The workshops always spilled over into social time.

The purpose was also psychological. Throughout the West Bank the following year, the workshops became the only outlet for children to process some of the damage done by the full scale military attacks of 2002. They were art and sculpture workshops and Al-Malhi was very clear about the purpose of them all:

To me it was to help them build a dream and in some cases to help them overcome specific psychological problems connected to the conflict. For example we did a travelling workshop which went to Jenin and Nablus and places affected by aerial attacks called ‘The Dream of Flying’ and this was to make them look up and give them confidence in the sky again. We made kites and set them flying one every minute. Taysir Bataniji did this is Gaza too.

Luc Chery 2000 – 2003

2010-06-10T14:35:00.000+03:00

In 2000 I took my son to the photography school in Arles where I met Luc Chery who was to become my husband in 2002. He came to Palestine and did projects with Al-Quds University, Bethlehem University and Al-Ma’mal (Huda Imam, Jerusalem April 2010)

Chery was involved with Al-Ma’mal for several years and conducted two workshops as well as presenting his own photography and exhibition projects:

The first workshop I did (in July 2001) was called "Jerusalem Ma Ville" and was conducted with Al-Quds University students in cooperation with the French Consulate and Al-Ma'mal. The aim was to lead students to a renewed appreciation of their city beyond the usual evidence on the surface.

Unfortunately no images of this project are currently available but in a statement written at the time Luc Chery wrote:

This photographic work was accomplished between September 2000 and May 2001, a date which marked the beginning of a new era of uncertainty and conflict: the outbreak of Al-Aqsa Intifada. Although within the heart of a conflict, this collection does not show any picture of war or confrontation, however, the day to day life, attitudes and expressions unveil tension and darkness. The images of architecture we see tend to point to an unrelenting process of destruction/reconstruction or perhaps re-composition. So many buildings are themselves affected by questions of identity through patches, scars, emptiness and additions all strongly marking the uncertainty and fragility of any possible definition of the place (From exhibition statement, 2001).

Chery’s workshop at Bethlehem University in 2002 introduced young Palestinians to a wide variety of materials within the context of contemporary art, particularly the creative possibilities of working with recycled materials. This was consistent with Al-Ma’mal’s shift in focus for workshop content that had occurred in 2001 following an assessment of workshop results over the first few years.

Here, the aim was to introduce new relationships with scraps and material, alteration and destruction and then to rebuild autonomous artworks out of this process (Luc Chery, June 2010).

Objects and materials were collected from domestic and industrial waste according to their ‘expressive uniqueness’ and there were conceptual echoes of Chery’s previous workshop project:

Cracks and rips mark their status as objects that have been tossed about, split up and marginalized. Such scattered fragments can be staged in devices enabling interplay of shapes and allotting them a renewed credit. When rearranged, they become small autonomous worlds endowed with impermanence and flexibility. As they are assembled, the scraps and fragments interact in floating layers and suspensions, in crushed-down volumes, in shadows and transparencies where they find a new inscription, a new belonging (From workshop proposal, 2002).

As Al-Ma’mal’s artist-in-residence in 2003 Chery presented a two-part exhibition called Les Habitats-Ode to the Refugee Camps. One series of photographs showed structures in Gaza’s refugee camps enclosed by cloth or plastic sheeting. A parallel series showed spaces in Bordeaux that had been specially constructed by Chery from discarded plastic, fabric and furniture. When the images were juxtaposed it was sometimes hard to differentiate between the two.

The project not only conveyed a sense of the confinement in the enclosed spaces of the refugee camps but also gave an empathetic picture of a people surviving by converting waste into a priceless commodity that provides shelter.

Luc Chery Website

Artist-in-Residence - Scarlett Hooft Graafland, 2000

2010-05-17T13:56:00.007+03:00

The other artist-in residence for 2000 was Dutch artist Scarlett Hooft Graafland who had come to Jerusalem in 1999 for post graduate study at the Bezalel Academy. Together with British artist Emily Douglas, she had done a mobile performance piece in the Old City that Christmas in which the two artists sold soap they had designed in the shape of sheep or Jesus.

We organised a small cart where we placed a bowl of water so people could wash their hands and try out the soap. Because of the mobility of the cart, we could reach all the separate parts of the old city, from the Christian quarter to the Muslim, from the Armenian to the Jewish. It was interesting to have such a diverse audience and different responses to the work. (Scarlett Hooft Graafland, Interview, May 2010)

It was through this she met Jack and they then discussed the possibility of having a similar installation of the work in Al Ma’mal and Anadiel. The title of the show was ‘Part-time Human’ and it also used soap carved into these same shapes. However, this time the work was used to explore questions in relation to the ‘Jerusalem Syndrome’, a temporary psychological disorder affecting some Jerusalem tourists who begin to believe that they themselves are Jesus.

For the installation at Al-Ma’mal, ‘Part-time Human’, I commissioned the production of hundreds of soap statues from one of the traditional Palestinian soap factories in Nablus. The soap is made out of soda and pure olive oil and is an ancient procedure. It is a famous Palestinian export product in the Arab world and is normally produced in square blocks. The sheep and Jesus statues were displayed on the floor of the gallery with many ‘Jesuses’ leading big flocks of sheep through the space. In this installation, I was trying to ask questions about the ‘real Jesus’, the same questions patients of the ‘Jerusalem Syndrome’ are dealing with (Scarlett Hooft Graafland, Interview, May 2010).

Designing, preparing and creating the components for this installation took a few months and required many trips to Nablus. This was a major undertaking in itself because the journey from Jerusalem passed though several check points necessitating several changes of mini bus. Getting back to Jerusalem with big boxes full of soap was an even greater challenge and not only because of the transport logistics:

When I first started the project, I had no idea it would be so complicated to make it happen. Many times I was stopped at check-points and had to show my belongings and explain why I was travelling with these amounts of soap, and why I was a western woman travelling alone in the West Bank. There was always a general tension with the check-points and the Israeli settlements sitting on the tops of mountains in the West Bank with their rigid architecture that seems to have no connection to their surroundings. It made me realize how hard it must be for people who have to deal with this as a day-to-day reality (Scarlett Hooft Graafland, Interview, May 2010).

When the project was eventually realised, the entire floor of Gallery Anadiel was covered with the soap sculptures distributed in bundles throughout the gallery space. Visitors were compelled to walk around and in between the flocks of sheep led by the 'Jesuses', while immersed in the smell of the soap pervading the space. This gave the exhibition much more than a purely visual impact. Despite the challenges, the success of the project left Graafland with an overwhelmingly positive recollection of the experience:

The hospitality of the Palestinians I met during my travels in the West Bank and the stunning landscapes of fields of old olive trees, the generosity of the factory owner in Nablus, where sometimes I would stay for days with his family working on the soap production, the interesting and broad art community I met through Al-Ma’mal - I thought it was very special and important to have a Foundation for Contemporary Art in the middle of Jerusalem with such a good program. I experienced a lot of creative energy at the centre and found that Al-Ma’mal was very well known and respected by the Israeli art community too (Scarlett Hooft Graafland, Interview, May 2010).

POSTSCRIPT

Graafland’s exhibition marked the second time that the floor of the gallery had been covered with Nablus soap, the first time being Mona Hatoum’s show at Anadiel in 1996. The soap and the factories had also been beautifully captured in a series of photographs by Issa Freij which were published in Edition 10 of What’s Up? in 1999.

These same images were reproduced in a special Al-Ma’mal Calendar in 2004 to stand as both testament and memorial to the soap and to the factories, several of which were destroyed by the Israeli incursion into Nablus in 2002.

For thousands of years the city of Nablus was exposed to many invasions yet no aggressor had dared to destroy the old city of Nablus and its precious cultural heritage until the coming of the Israelis. It was reported on the 12th of April 2002 that among many other buildings in the old city of Nablus, the Masri, Rantisi and Cana’an soap factories had been destroyed. (Jack Persekian, From 'Nablus Soap', 2010)

Artist-in-Residence Interview – Peter Riedlinger 2000

2010-05-11T12:20:00.007+03:00

1. How did you first get involved with Al-Ma'mal?
I was initially invited to Jerusalem by the Jerusalem Center for the Visual Arts, an Israeli institution based in the city. I had a desire to come to the country to understand more about the complex situation at that time in 1999 while the peace process was still actually in process. I stayed for 6 months as their guest on Mount Zion and developed my project us/them.

The curator of contemporary art in the Israel Museum recommended that I go to Gallery Anadiel where she thought the work would fit well. I contacted Jack and we met and I introduced the work to him. He then invited me to show the work at his gallery. The show was arranged and I extended my stay beyond so all in all I stayed 8 months and the team of Al-Ma'mal and me became friends. During my first trip I did a workshop with the Israeli High School for the Arts to finance my stay and the exhibition 'us/them' at Anadiel in April/May. The following summer Jack sent me an invitation to also run a photography workshop at Al-Ma'mal but at exactly that time the political situation escalated dramatically. When I returned to Jerusalem at the end of September 2000 the Intifada had just broken out and violence and oppression was all over the place.

2. What were the main challenges of your workshop at Al-Ma'mal?
The general situation of everyday violence and the very pessimistic mood that struck the people in East Jerusalem and the West Bank was certainly not favourable to hosting a workshop. The idea seemed so far away from the problems dictated by the time to everybody who was a resident of the city. However, despite these odds we managed to engage a group of youth who were quite curious and interested in my program and in the end two workshops were conducted. They resulted in some amazing images being made by the students which were then exhibited. Two things were important for me: understanding the critical role/power and coverage of the media and photography in the country on the one hand, and understanding the medium of photography from its very base on the other. This made the students quite creative.

3. What are your strongest memories of your time there?
I have plenty of very strong memories that are also personal. I met and fell in love with my wife the Palestinian artist Noel Jabbour. We harvested olives from a neglected old grove in Ein Kerem and made about 25 litres of the finest olive oil in Beit Jala. At night we heard the bombardment of Beit Jala by the Israelis while during the day we went there to press the olives. In a way it was quite absurd but I wanted to continue doing things that were normal. Also I remember going to the cinema in Ramallah at night and how the Israeli soldiers on checkpoints could not believe that there were people who were insisting on doing such activities among Palestinians.

4. Did the experience have an impact on your own work?

Certainly it had a direct impact. We moved away from Ein Kerem to the east to Dahiat al-Barid close to Jack's house. At one point the Israelis started to isolate first the neighborhood then the whole city from the West Bank. This was the start of a new project 'us/them II' that documented these drastic changes in the urban landscape in and around the city. The escalated building in and of settlements and infrastructure became particularly relevant in my work. The project was then followed up in 2008 and exhibited at Gallery Anadiel as well as in the Goethe Institute in Ramallah, Beirut and Damascus and it was published in Camera Austria.

5. Do you have any other observations about your time at Al-Ma'mal?

I have always the greatest respect for all their strength to keep up such significant and important cultural work for East Jerusalem and its residents, despite the crippling isolation the Palestinians suffer.

Peter Riedlinger Website

Email Interview May 2010

Peter Riedlinger, continued his relationship with Al-Ma’mal after his official residency period and conducted a second photography workshop in 2001.

Bethlehem and Jerusalem 2000

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In 2000 the activities in Al-Ma’mal had to be dramatically scaled back. There were no workshops, only two artists in residence and only two other exhibitions.

In the wider political context the millennium year confirmed a bitter end rather than a new beginning. Although optimism about an agreement between Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak at Camp David in July was never particularly high, the absolute failure and its aftermath could not have been anticipated. The political cynicism of Ariel Sharon's visit to Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem in September, provided the spark that then ignited the second uprising, or 'Al Aqsa intifada’. In the years of violence and chaos that followed, not only did the mechanism for dialogue vanish but also any residual notion that agreement in the foreseeable future was possible.

The impact of this was certainly felt at Al Ma’mal but there were other more prosaic reasons for the scaling back. One of these was quite simply a lack of money:

That year was just awful with the situation and we had a funding crisis. There was no money for production either of What’s Up or workshops. Because a lot of our own money had gone into it, we were having personal financial issues too. This meant we all really needed to get proper jobs for a while. (Samar Martha, 2010)

At that time Huda Iman was working as a consultant to the Bethlehem 2000 project and thought that the whole team and infrastructure of Al-Ma'mal could work together on this project too. Thanks to Samar Martha’s sister, Khalil Rabah was able to get in and out of Ramallah so it was plausible:

It was tricky getting in and out of Jerusalem both for me and Khalil because we had West Bank IDs. Luckily my sister had a spare car with Jerusalem plates so we used to borrow her car and license to make it look like we were Jerusalem residents. We just had to hope that we didn’t get stopped and asked for our IDs. (Samar Martha, 2010)

However, things didn’t work out quite as expected. Although Jack, Huda, Khalil and Samar did all work with Bethlehem 2000, it was as individuals rather than a team.

We all ended up at the Bethlehem 2000 project. I remember Huda wanted to sub-contract Al-Ma’mal as an organisation to produce projects for Bethlehem 2000 but instead we all got jobs there separately. (Samar Martha, 2010)

Artist-in-Residence Interview – Beat Streuli 1999

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1. How did you first get involved with Al-Ma'mal?

I was at the Sydney Biennale in 1998 and met an artist and friend Khalil Rabah. He transmitted an invitation from Jack for me to come and do something in Jerusalem. At the same time there was an Israeli artist who also transmitted an invitation from the Dvir Gallery in Tel Aviv. I was really happy about these simultaneous invitations and thought it would save me two trips so I scheduled to do both at the same time.

Working on both sides was of course a bit more complicated than anticipated but it meant that I got to see the whole complex situation very quickly. It was just before the 2nd intifada so it was a comparatively pleasant time when I was there. A beautiful time in fact. I was there for two weeks working for about a week on each exhibition.

2. What kind of work you were doing?

In Tel Aviv I was snapping on the street but in Jerusalem I was doing portraits with high school students. I was meeting them and getting to know them a bit while taking their photos. Some of them were also part of the workshop I did. It all went very smoothly. They were open minded kids who gave some hope for the future and were very different from the images of violence associated with this place. Two girls also took us around and we went to more traditional boy’s schools and I took portraits of some of these boys too.

3. What do you remember about the workshop?

The photography I did was part of the artist-in-residence program but it was also mostly for an exhibition at Anadiel Gallery. I remember doing a presentation about my work and looked at students’ work but I don’t think I really did a proper workshop. I mostly worked with Rula Halawani who organised it all.

3. What are your strongest memories of your time there?

The whole trip was pretty mind-blowing. It was my first time in the region and even though it was quiet at that time I knew of course about the political history and situation. The main thing was just to be there because when you are on-site you understand much better what is really happening. It’s all much closer and it touches you much more. In general, it’s true that you can know as much as you like about a place but unless you have spent some time there physically, it is nowhere near as present and meaningful. You need to have been there.

It was amazing to meet and get to know all of these people in such a short time through working closely with them and not just as a ‘cultural tourist’. Jack has a great personality and at that time Khalil was always there too. We went to Ramallah and once went all over the West Bank and often just hung out in outdoor cafes and talked. This is an easily forgotten reality. I think it is important to try and emphasise people not as victims but as human beings who have fun and are fun to be with despite all the problems in the background.

4. Did the experience change your own work or was it more a continuation and development of a theme?

What was important was Jack’s approach. I remember him saying that he tried to run the Al-Ma’mal art space in a ‘non-political’ way. He wanted a chance to deal with culture in a pretty pure way for once and not just as a reaction to the situation. So I tried not to react to the political issues too directly. This suited my work becuase it doesn’t usually do this anyway.

It was the first time that I had not focused on people with a social and western background like me. Having been a photographer never specifically looking for the ‘other’, quite the opposite, this gave me an opportunity to see how I could deal with such a new situation. This first experience of a different environment opened my work up to cope with more far away realities. It was an important first step. I was a bit nervous about photographing in a mostly Arab context because I was afraid of photography that seems ‘exotic’ but around the old city there was quite a cosmopolitan atmosphere that was typically Arab at the same time, and I think that my photographic method proved to work quite well in that context too.

The people I met doing the portraits were quite ideal. They were subjects that allowed me to project an image to my audience back home and elsewhere that was of normality and not a cliché of poor Arab countries or violence, and not naive or superficial either. What is nice about the work I did in Jerusalem is that these images went on. I have used them a few times either on their own, or mixed with other portraits from elsewhere. For example one or two were printed out 5m high and used for a spectacular window installation at Palais de Tokyo in Paris which was there for four years, from 2002.

5. How were the photographs exhibited at Al-Ma'mal?

In Jerusalem the portraits were produced as posters and mounted on the wall of the exhibition space. This was a perfectly adequate way of working with a low budget project but most of all it was a way of keeping it simple, accessible and everyday rather than what is created by using big and expensive framed prints.

Telephone Interview conducted April 30th 2010

Beat Streuli - Website

Up and Running - The Programmes in 99

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After securing the Ford Foundation grant in 1998, valuable practical donations also started to arrive. There was photography lab equipment from the UNDP, office equipment from Dr. Baerbel Stark and the Youth Press Organization of Brandenburg, picture frames from the Goethe Institute and Hessen, and assistance with books and publications from Pro-Helvetia. There were also committed volunteers like Ilona Hazboun, Daphna Golan and Kristin Klank, and assistance for Al-Ma'mal's participation in Sao Paulo from Pauline Laboulaye and George Nasser. During this early period, plans were being made on the basis that the Tile Factory would be up and running within a year or two. However, as progress on the Tile Factory continued to remain elusive, Al-Ma’mal’s programmes constantly had to juggle with available space and time:

It was very hard. Organising all the photography workshops, exhibitions, artists-in-residence and artist projects, in parallel with trying to get the Tile Factory up and running was extremely frustrating and very time consuming. (Jack Persekian, 2010)

Despite this, all of Al-Ma’mal’s programmes went ahead in 1999. The photography workshops continued with the existing partners and also expanded to include four more: the Palestinian Youth Club, the Arab Catholic Club, the Medical Relief Society and the African Community Centre. Three more instructors were also taken on board: Osama Silwadi, Atta Oweisat and Montserrat Casanova, and in late 1999, Al-Ma’mal launched two contemporary art workshops as well. These were taught by Nina Vero and took place in the Coptic School in Jerusalem and Dheishe Refugee Camp in Bethlehem.

Palestinian artist-in-residence in 1999 was film-maker, Sobhi Zubaidi but the first Al-Ma'mal international artists-in-residence also arrived in Jerusalem that year. In the continuing absence of the Tile Factory, the artists were hosted by the East Jerusalem YMCA. The first was American photographer, Zoe Leonard (above) who participated in a photography workshop program and had a solo exhibition at Al-Ma'mal. The second was Swiss photographer, Beat Streuli whose street portraits of young people in Jerusalem were exhibited at Anadiel and the third, was German photographer Peter Riedlinger (below) residency spanned 1999 and 2000.

Other exhibitions in 1999 included a 'A Greek in India' by photographer Anis Georgiou and a show of work produced by the second batch of workshop trainees. The work produced in the 98 and 99 workshops was published a year later in a book called Xposure along with the images created by the visiting artists. The backdrop to all the photography is Jerusalem and the city features in most of the work. Trainees photographed their environment and neighbourhoods and their families and friends, while the architecture and people of the city dominate the work of the artists-in-residence. A photography series by 1998 workshop tutor, Noel Jabbour was also included in Xposure.

São Paulo and Shu Fi?

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Khalil Rabah closed down his architectural practice in 97/98 in order to focus on creative work, his arts related jobs and Al-Ma’mal itself. As noted earlier, two pivotal events for Al-Ma'mal in 1998 were producing ‘Shu Fi?'/What’s Up? - A Guide to Cultural Activities in Palestine’, and participating in the XXIV São Paulo Biennale in Brazil. Founded in 1951, the São Paulo Biennial is the second oldest biennial in the world, the oldest being Venice (1895), so representation at São Paulo was significant:

Our participation in the Sao Paulo Biennial was a very memorable time. It was then I realised we had made a fundamental transition and were now irreversibly part of the international scene. It was a rare moment of reflection on how far we had come in so short a time. (Khalil Rabah, Ramallah, 2010)

While the São Paulo Biennale was taking place in October and November 1998, Huda Imam remained in Jerusalem looking after the gallery and working on Al-Ma’mal:

When Jack and Khalil were in Sao Paulo I worked at Anadiel. I also worked at the Al-Ma'mal building and along with Rula Kalawani created the darkroom. This was a very special time. We had Al-Ma’mal and I was there helping to set things up while Jack and Khalil were participating in an international biennale for the first time ever. (Huda Imam, Jerusalem 2010)

Setting up the darkroom and putting other essentials in place enabled Al-Ma'mal to begin 1999 with the resources available to host its own workshops. Completing all the production work for 'Shu Fi? / What's Up?' by the end of 1998, also meant that the new year could begin with Edition 1 of the magazine. So in January 1999, Palestine's first contemporary Arts and Culture Magazine was launched. Like the early funding proposals, the dedication and care that went into producing ‘Shu Fi?/What’s Up?’ made each edition a self-contained work of art.

Shu Fi? was wonderful. I am getting goose bumps just thinking about it. There were 15 editions and we did everything. We chose the themes, all the material and arranged the layout - we were the graphic designers, the editors and even the distributors. Each had a print run of 1000 copies and we distributed them in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Nablus, Gaza, all over. People still associate Al Ma’mal with this. (Khalil Rabah, Ramallah, 2010)

The magazine was large format and contained images, artwork and information related to a theme, an artist or artists, or a residence project. For example, the April edition focused on Artist-in-Residence, Zoe Leonard, and July on Iranian artist, Shirin Neshat. August featured nine Palestinian artists, September was a study of Russian contemporary art and October was all about architects and museums. In November details of Caravaggio paintings were beautifully reproduced in an edition that referenced Christianity and art.

The Palestine Cultural Events listed in each edition were extensive, and covered all major Palestinian cities and art forms including cinema, dance, theatre and music as well as exhibitions and workshops. There were even notifications about guided tours with the Palestinian Association for Cultural Exchange. However, in 2000 things dramatically changed:

Camp David failed, Ariel Sharon went to Al-Aqsa and we were suddenly in another intifada. The closure of the territories became tighter and eventually even Bezalel (Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem) couldn’t get me a permit to enter Jerusalem from Ramallah. For a while I was going through back roads to avoid the checkpoint, and working for free because without an official permit they couldn’t pay me. I then managed to do some work on the Bethlehem 2000 project but in the end I went to London after being offered a one year residency at the Delfina Institute. (Khalil Rabah, Ramallah, 2010)

The absence of Khalil combined with difficulties in securing funding meant that production of Shu Fi?/What’s Up was suspended. The next edition did not appear until February 2002. It was no longer the cultural information resource that it had been but there was a poignant continuity:

The last four editions were only about artist projects. Jack told me later that when they agreed on making a publication part of the artist-in-residence package, he insisted they take the name and the format of What’s Up? (Jumana Abboud, Al-Ma'mal, 2002 - present)

Of the final four editions (12-15), three were published in 2002. Edition 12 was on photographer Luc Chery's workshop project and Edition 13 explored the Art of the Khatchkars (Saint James Monastery, Jerusalem). The focus of Edition 14 was an exhibition of paintings related to Jerusalem by Jumana Al Husseini and was dedicated to the memory of Faisal Al Husseini who had died earlier that year. The final edition of Shu Fi?/What’s Up was published in 2003 and contained images and text from Emily Jacir's Artist-in-Residence project, '(im)mobility'.

(The only cover image missing is Edition 1)

1998 Continued

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The photography workshops brought children from different backgrounds and different parts of the City together. They also brought together groups of artists which contributed much to the evolution of Al-Ma’mal as a centre for art. There was no place in Palestine at that time where photography could be studied and where both young and more experienced photographers could learn and develop their skills. The youth clubs and community centres perceived photography as a practical, as well as a creative skill, and thus saw the workshops as potentially opening up job opportunities for the young people involved. Rula Halawani, Project Director from 1998-2000 recalls this period as follows:

The first workshops at Al-Ma’mal were very interesting. The kids enjoyed them. I enjoyed them and some of the work they produced was fantastic. I set up workshops and trained other photographers and later I taught adults which was another positive experience. I was also an artist-in-residence, and in 1998 Al-Ma'mal used a series of photos of working children, which I had taken in the early nineties, as one of their first artist projects.

The workshops were part of the Jerusalem Network Programme which was just one of Al-Ma’mal’s three programmed areas of activity. The Artist-in-Residence programme was organised throughout 1998 (in order to commence in 1999), while the Cultural Information Programme was very busy! In 1998 it established a network and database of cultural institutions in Palestine and links to various arts institutions and projects abroad. It also organised subscriptions to international art publications in order that students, artists and visitors could access knowledge and information about trends and issues in international contemporary art. In addition to this, the Cultural Information Programme had two more major accomplishments in that first year. The production of a monthly arts and culture magazine Shu Fi? Or What’s Up? and last, but certainly not least, Al-Ma’mal became the first ever official Palestinian representative at an international biennale - the XXIV Sao Paulo Biennial in Brazil.

1998 - The First Workshops

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The first six workshops on ‘Introductory Photography’ were conducted between July and November 1998 at Al –Ma’mal’s partner institutes. At this stage, photography was the obvious first step. Its familiarity made it the most easily accessible art form and perhaps ironically, it was the form that had most dictated the Palestinian narrative in the international media.

The young participants were supplied with cameras, film, darkroom facilities, photographic material, books and a photo archive and were then trained in both technique and aesthetics. The main purpose of the workshops was to provide individuals from Jerusalem and the vicinity with an opportunity to engage creatively and explore alternative means of self-expression. Undergoing this process in an environment conducive to group interaction, cooperation, mutual understanding and tolerance was another potential and far-reaching benefit.

Project Director, Rula Halawani taught at the Mount of Olives Youth Club and the East Jerusalem YMCA, Awad Awad taught at the Silwan Youth Club and Shufat Camp, Noel Jabbour at the Arab Orthodox Society Club and Amer Derbas at the Old City Youth Club.

The official opening of Al-Ma’mal took place in the evening of January 30th 1999. The opening event was an exhibition of photographic works by 47 trainees who had participated in Al-Ma’mal’s first six workshops. Around the corner in Anadiel was an exhibition of work by several well known Palestinian artists and photographers. The two exhibitions brought the young photographers and the established artists together and many visitors walked from one show to the other. In the normally silent darkness of the Old City at night, this was a very unusual scene.

Al-Ma'mal and Goats

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Meaning ‘workshop’ or ‘small factory’, Al-Ma'mal not only referred to the Tile Factory building itself, but was also the name given to the whole area by the local inhabitants of the neighbourhood. Considering where the Foundation was to be based and what it wanted to do, keeping this name was the obvious choice. The next step was to design a logo. Shireen Mazzawi, the wife of one of Al-Ma’mal’s founders, Samir Srouji, originally proposed the idea of having a goat as a logo and the team realised it made sense on many levels.

First, the presence of goats usually indicates an environment verging on desert and goats are great survivors. They are animals that can feed on anything, can climb or walk on any terrain and they have great perseverance. Whenever the economic situation is dire, more goats start to appear because they are easy to look after and still a form of economic security. According to Jack Persekian:

With Al-Ma’mal we had this sense of being on the verge and the allusion to difficult terrain was very appropriate for Jerusalem. We could envisage Al-Ma'mal as a goat in the desert or navigating the intricate terrain of Jerusalem and regardless of whether we had resources or only plastic bags to feed on we would survive. Lastly it is a beautiful animal and a strong symbol in Palestinian culture so it was also a marker of our identity.

The Founding of Al-Ma'mal

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The six founders of Al-Ma’mal had already found a suitable Old City venue for the new project. It had been a traditional handmade floor-tiles factory established in 1900 and operational until 1975, when automation and cheaper imports made it commercially unviable. The owners of the Tile Factory, who were members of the Kassissieh family, offered the building to the project for 20 years, rent free.

The future home of Al-Ma’mal may have had a rich creative history, but in 1997 it was empty and in a very bad state of repair. However, its Old City location meant that funding could be sought in the form of a renovation grant. Anticipating a long process to get permission for the renovation and use of the building, secure the funding and complete the work, the six rented a building near the Tile Factory to be an administrative and exhibition space, and vantage point from which to monitor Tile Factory renovations when they began.

The first major funding proposal from 1997 outlines two distinct entities under the umbrella of a newly named Anadiel Institute of Contemporary Art. The first was called the Jerusalem Network, which would organise year-round cultural activities and house a Cultural Information Office. The second was Al Ma’mal, which at that time was seen purely as an artist-in-residence program for the new premises. The proposal contained detailed plans for the conversion of the Tile Factory to a dedicated residency space including kitchens, bedrooms, a multi-function hall and projection room, workshop and exhibition space.

The application to the Jerusalem Municipality for conversion and renovation of the space was intensely complicated. Realising delays were going to be far longer than anticipated necessitated a change of plan so a second proposal in 1997 designated Al-Ma’mal as one organisation within which all initiatives would be housed. This enabled the organisation to function in the existing premises and be registered as a charity which expanded the funding options. A grant was secured from the Ford Foundation in 1998 and the Al-Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art was finally on its way.

Securing the funding from Ford was a very special moment remarked upon by two of Al-Ma’mal’s founders, Khalil Rabah and Huda Imam. The funding proposals themselves were also very special: beautifully designed and bound with metal studs they were art books in their own right. According to Huda Imam:

We were a model of teamwork. Everyone had put something into creating the proposals. We spent a lot of time with the Graphic Designer (Munther Jaber) who worked with Khalil to produce the artwork and the design. By the time we submitted it to Ford it was already a beautiful product.

Khalil Rabah was very pleased to recall that the hard work on the proposals had not gone unnoticed:

We submitted the proposals to the Cairo office and the reply we got was something like: ‘Whoever can make a proposal like this, I am sure can do something good with the money we give them’.

By the end of 1998 it was obvious that plans for the Tile Factory space had to be frozen. The complex process of approval seemed endless and when it was finally over, the promised renovation grant was no longer there:

It dragged on for years. By the time we had gone through the courts and obtained all the necessary permissions and paperwork, there was no money. Although the Welfare Association had announced the renovation grant it never actually happened. (Jack Persekian)

As a consequence it was the temporary space that became Al-Mamal’s rather more permanent home. Twelve years on the Tile Factory is still awaiting its renovation grant.

Something is Missing

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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)

Political Footnotes

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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)

The Diaspora effect

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From the early days, Anadiel exhibited Palestinian Diaspora artists, some of whom had never been to Palestine. Having foreign nationalities and passports, these artists were able to visit as tourists and many projects were made financially possible by the artists’ respective governments. In April 1996 the new premises of Anadiel hosted a solo show by Mona Hatoum. For Khalil Rabah this show was particularly memorable:

When we began to look towards Diaspora artists, Mona Hatoum was just starting to make a name for herself internationally and her solo exhibition at Anadiel in 1996 was an important moment for me. I felt that we really had brought contemporary art to Jerusalem (Ramallah, 2010).

A brand new discourse began to emerge as a result of encounters between visiting and local artists. This explored questions of identity and modernity, the relationship to the land, popular imagery and national iconography. More tangible concerns also emerged about articulation and representation.

At this time the profile of the gallery was also being enhanced by international media interest that had developed with the onset of the peace process. The signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords suggested that the political will did exist for a mutual exit strategy from the conflict. Yasser Arafat returned to Palestine, the Palestinian flag could be displayed without fear of arrest, and a sense of optimism prompted the return of many Palestinians who brought business, knowledge and commitment to the nascent Palestinian state. For a brief period this opened up considerable inflows of both private and international donor investment in the West Bank, particularly Ramallah, and to Gaza, where Arafat was initially based. East Jerusalem, however, was not included in the autonomous Palestinian territories, being one key issue among several postponed under the Oslo Accords. Negotiations on the status of Jerusalem were categorised as a final status issue which ultimately meant that they could be delayed indefinitely. The results of this are now painfully clear.

Relocation

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In late 1995 the lease on the premises in Salahudin Street expired and a decision had to be made about whether or not to continue with the gallery. Given the function that the space had started to serve, losing it would have been quite a blow to the emerging network. Persekian made a decision to relocate the gallery to the Old City where he had a space that used to be the workshop of his father's bookbinding business.

There were concerns with having the Old City as a location. Unlike Salahudin, it was not on a main street and was only accessible by foot so it was possible that less visitors would come. However, these premises meant that the gallery could continue without the constant need for huge amounts of money. So after giving the workshop a good clean, the new Anadiel was established in January 1996. Once again unanticipated things started to happen:

It became the most amazing thing being inside the old city. To work and to have artists visit here and to be part of that history and that environment. It meant that when the decision came to found Al-Ma’mal there was no question about where it would be - inside the Old City. (Jack Persekian, 2010)

This was echoed in a recent comment by another of Al-Mamal's founders, Khalil Rabah, who had also been with Anadiel right from the beginning:

Losing Anadiel in Salahudin Street was painful but suddenly there was a new vision. Around this time I remember we took part in an exhibition in Geneva connected to the 50th anniversary of the UN. This highlighted the aspects of our art that already had an international identity. Given the international identity of Jerusalem particularly the Old City, Anadiel’s move made perfect sense and was absolutely the right place to be for the next stage of our development. (Khalil Rabah, 2010)

In the beginning there was Anadiel.

2010-04-13T10:38:00.010+03:00

The Al-Ma'mal Foundation for Contemporary Art was founded in 1998 but the story begins six years earlier with the Anadiel Gallery. Going through the Anadiel archives is already throwing up some fascinating facts and images as well as the two most aesthetically pleasing funding proposals I have ever seen. This early period was before digital cameras so there are very few digitised archive images available, however this recent scan shows how the gallery looked.

Anadiel launched on the 20th January 1992 on Salahudin Street in East Jerusalem as a partnership between Jack Persekian and Issa Kassissieh and was originally intended to function as a business. They hoped they could sell contemporary Palestinian art to visitors but particularly to Palestinians returning in the wake of optimism generated by the onset of the peace process. Although, some sales were made, business was never good enough to completely cover costs so as a commercial enterprise Anadiel never took off. However, in the early years what began as the first and only independent gallery in Palestine took on an important life of its own. As well as being an exhibition space for local artists it quickly became a gathering place, not only for artists but for an emerging Palestinian cultural network.

The list of names that exhibited in Anadiel in those early years is impressive and includes many now internationally renowned like Suleiman Mansour, Tayseer Barakat, Nasser Soumi, Nabil Anani, Vera Tamari and Jumana Al Husseini. Two more, Khalil Rabah and Samir Srouji (whose Family Fortunes from 1994 is shown right), were to become founding members of Al-Ma'mal.

As more connections were made, the discussions developed and new voices were heard. It became very clear that exhibition space alone wasn’t enough and that opportunities and resources for making art and finding and promoting new artists needed to be provided. What also became clear in the political context was that the principal focus of the gallery space needed to be Jerusalem and Palestine.

Talking to local artists, organising shows and begging for funds became Persekian’s life for several years. He then began looking outwards to the Palestinian Diaspora and international artists, hosting a groundbreaking project by French artist Jean Luc Vilmouth in 1994. Vilmouth temporarily transformed Anadiel into the Café d'Olivier (or Olive Café). Central to the transformation of the gallery space was the presence of one of the most potent symbols of the conflict, an uprooted olive tree. This engagement of international artists with the situation in Palestine was to become one of the founding principles of Al-Ma'mal.

The Al-Ma'mal Foundation, Jerusalem, April 2010

2010-04-12T16:35:00.000+03:00

I am very happy to be in the Al-Ma'mal Foundation in Jerusalem where I will be writer-in-residence for the next 10 days.

This is not my first visit to this city. I have been here several times before and actually spent part of the 90s living and working here. This puts me in the rather strange position of being able to understand ‘the situation’. Given its historical, religious and political density this apparent comprehension is quite an achievement. However, at this stage I find it best to perceive it in two ways: either as a scientist, in which case it becomes a challenging model of complexity theory, or as an artist.

Being an artist in this situation has several advantages. It liberates the individual from the frustration of causes and allows a real time analysis of effects. It provides a method to emotionally disengage from political futility and re-engage with human reality. It doesn’t remove the situation but it keeps it at a safe enough distance to maintain sanity and to construct narratives that are true to their creator and thus true to their audience. It is always a two-way process and consistently creates opportunities for constructive communication and progressive thought.

Which brings us rather neatly to Al-Ma'mal…...

This project will be a comprehensive investigation into the history of the Al-Ma'mal Foundation. While inevitably situated within the destructive political realities from which it emerged, the focus of this investigation will be the constructive cultural and social realities it generates.

Using archive images and text, interviews with founders, partners, artists, tutors and beneficiaries, this project hopes to present the work of the Foundation as a series of creative works and stages hence the notion of Al-Ma'mal as a retrospective.

The project will continue after the 10 day residency until the narrative reaches the present. It will then become a permanent archive, information and links resource as well as an ongoing project to which future residents of Al-Ma'mal can also contribute.