Artist-in-Residence - Scarlett Hooft Graafland, 2000

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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.