July/August 2006

http://alawda.newjerseysolidarity.org

"Made in Palestine" Concludes Historic Run in New York City

The "Made in Palestine" exhibition of contemporary Palestinian art celebrated its opening in New York City on March 16, 2006, to a packed gallery through which nearly 2,000 people entered during the evening. The exhibition, which features works by Palestinian artists in Palestine and in exile, including Rana Bishara, Mustafa al-Hallaj, Suleiman Mansour and Vera Tamari, premiered in Houston in 2003, at the Station Museum, the home of curator James Harithas. Harithas, who assembled the exhibition with the assistance of consultant and "Made in Palestine" artist Samia Halaby, was on hand with several of the exhibition's artists for the gala opening celebration. The exhibition ran in New York from March 16 to May 27, 2006. Its original run was set to end on April 22, but was extended following the immense response of the art, Palestinian and Arab, and solidarity communities of New York.

The exhibition made its debut in New York's art world after two years of fundraising by Al Jisser Group, a committee working to promote Arab art and culture in New York. Spearheaded by Halaby, Al Jisser hosted a series of fundraisers and events that built excitement about and awareness of the exhibition among the city’s Arab and Palestinian communities and their supporters and allies, and the city’s art community. World-renowned musician Simon Shaheen donated a concert to the fundraising effort, and Nibras Arab American Theater Collective and the Kazbah Project organized a series of one-act plays to benefit the show. Students from Pace University performed plays by Betty Shamieh and Noura Erakat, and members of the New Jersey Palestinian community organized a large benefit for the exhibition as Friends of Al Jisser, among numerous efforts in support of the show.

John Halaka, "Stripped of Their Identity and Driven from Their Land," from the series Forgotten Survivors, 1993/1997/2003.

The years of work paid off with the opening of the show at The Bridge gallery, a space rented by Al Jisser. Thousands viewed the exhibition during its run in New York, the closing city for the exhibition, which had traveled from Houston to San Francisco and Montpelier before its time in New York. During the show’s time in New York, the Bridge Gallery became a center for artistic and political activity in the city, a hub of organizing and empowerment for the Arab and Palestinian communities. The gallery space hosted numerous events organized by activist groups, including Al-Awda New York, New Jersey Solidarity - Activists for the Liberation of Palestine, the New York Committee to Defend Palestine, the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, and the Culture and Conflict Group. It also was home to a number of cultural events, including poetry evenings hosted by Palestinian poet Suheir Hammad and a group of Arab slam poets, including Remi Kanazi and Tahani Saleh, a comedy night hosted by the Arab American Comedy Festival, and evenings of art and culture, featuring Samia Halaby’s kinetic painting, musicians and panels for discussion of the art.

Events at the gallery included an evening of solidarity with political prisoners, organized by Al-Awda; Zuhdi al-Adawi, the Palestinian political prisoner artist, was the show’s visiting artist and the guest of honor at the event, which also featured presentations by Ashanti Alston, and representatives of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, BAYAN/USA, ProLibertad and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. Other events included a presentation by visiting members of the Ibda’a Health Committee from Deheisheh Refugee Camp; a memorial evening for Palestinian activist Ali Kased that also commemorated the Day of the Land, one year after his death; an event in commemoration of the Deir Yassin massacre, featuring survivor Dawud Assad; an evening of celebration of the life of Leonard Peltier; and film showings, including a visit from the Palestinian filmmakers of the Balata Film Collective, a showing of “Naji Al-Ali: An Artist with Vision,” and numerous other events and activities. During its run, the Bridge was a vibrant center of Arab and Palestinian and solidarity activism in the city, as the historic art show brought Palestinian art and culture to the center of the Manhattan art universe.

Mustafa Al-Hallaj, “Self-Portrait as God, the Devil, and Man” (detail), 1994-2002

The work in the show is a catalogue of Palestinian history, creativity and expression. The prisoner art of Zuhdi al-Adawi and Muhammad Rakouie, Palestinian political prisoners who taught themselves drawing and painting in Zionist jails while under constant threat of solitary confinement and the confiscation of their materials if discovered, evokes traditional symbols of struggle for freedom and liberation and love for the land of Palestine, and evince a brilliant creative resistance that cannot be suppressed. Al-Adawi, who was freed in a prisoner exchange after fifteen years in Zionist jails and lives today in Damascus, Syria, attended the opening and visited the New York area as the exhibition’s visiting artist and honored guest.

Tyseer Barakat’s chest of drawers is burned with images that tell the story of his father’s life through al-Nakba, the 1948 occupation of Palestine and expulsion of over 800,000 Palestinians, with each drawer unveiling another chapter of his father’s Palestinian life. “Blindfolded History,” by Rana Bishara, consists of glass panels silkscreened in chocolate with iconic images of oppression and resistance in Palestine; the chocolate appears like dried blood, and there are 57 panels in her series, one for every year since al-Nakba. Rajie Cook’s “Ammo Box” provides an imposing reminder of the power disparity in Palestine; a huge NATO munitions box is full of rocks – weapons of Palestinian resistance that serve to highlight the massive military, political and economic aid provided to the Zionist occupation of Palestine.

Mervat Essa, "Saffurya," 2000.

In Mervat Essa’s “Saffurya,” a photograph of the village from which her grandmother was exiled during Al-Nakba hangs above ceramic sacks which appear to be yearning to return. Marked with numbers, the sacks mark the times the residents of the village have appealed to return to their homes and land, every time denied. A series of small blocks, each emblazoned with a donkey in a different situation or amid a different material, comprise Ashraf Fawakhry’s “I am Donkey/Made in Palestine” series, a humorous piece identifying with the donkey, persistent in all situations. Samia Halaby’s large wall piece, “Palestine from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River,” is an abstract map of Palestine in colors that evoke gardens, mountains, and the varieties of the land of Palestine.

The photographic prints by Rula Halawani capture devastation in Palestine, produced as negatives in order to draw attention in a way news documentary photographs rarely do. “Stripped of their Land and Driven from their Homes,” by John Halaka, is an iconic, massive mural rubber-stamped with the words “Forgotten Survivors,” creating a portrait of refugees forced from their homes and seeking justice and return – an image that could refer to today’s Katrina survivors, to Iraqis seeking refuge from occupation, or to indigenous peoples forced from their land in North America as well as it does to Palestinian refugees.

The massive print, “Self-Portrait as God, the Devil and Man,” by Mustafa al-Hallaj, incorporates techniques reminiscent of ancient Egyptian art while exploring timeless themes, creating a fantastical modern mythological work that spans ancient themes and modern Palestinian life. Jawad Ibrahim’s small, dense images of Palestinian martyrs evoke the horror of life under occupation, while Noel Jabbour’s family portraits of Palestinian families who have lost fathers, mothers, and brothers to Zionist arms convey both the absence of the missing and the steadfastness of those who remain.

“Crossing Surda,” an installation by Emily Jacir, combines video and sound to evoke the atmosphere of the checkpoint Jacir crossed daily on her way to work. Suleiman Mansour’s large clay pieces, “I, Ismael,” line a central wall of the exhibition, depicting the revered ancestor of the Arab people in a cracking clay. A series of pen-and-ink drawings by Abdel Rahman al-Mozayen depict the destruction of the Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin in 2002, drawn into the embroidery of the dresses of Canaanite goddesses, making the images of destruction beautiful and referencing ancient Palestinian heritage.

Nida Sinnokrot’s “Rubber-Coated Stones” ironically provide “rubber-coated” rocks to Palestinians as counterpoints to the Zionist military’s “rubber-coated bullets” that have maimed many Palestinians while masquerading as humanitarian “alternatives” to regular ammunition, while “West Bank Butterflies,” a piece mounted by Al Jisser Group based on Sinnokrot’s work in progress, turn a map of Palestine’s West Bank, marked by the apartheid wall, into butterflies ready to fly free.

Five massive, sheer silk dresses form Mary Tuma’s “Homes for the Disembodied,” evoking the simultaneous resilient, steadfast presence of Palestinian women and their absence from much public discourse about Palestine, while Vera Tamari’s “Tale of a Tree” presents an image of the Palestinian olive tree, iconic yet endangered, in a large photographic print and small ceramic forms.

The exhibition, drawing together multiple styles, evinces the creativity and resilience of contemporary Palestinian art. It is an exhibition of revolutionary art, brilliantly expressive and committed to a Palestinian creative and artistic presence whose power, integrity and vision cannot be denied or suppressed despite nearly 58 years of Zionist colonialism. Embracing Palestinian artists throughout Palestine and in exile, it presented a museum-quality view of Palestinian creativity.

The exhibit’s closing was an occasion for further celebration of the show, and for welcoming a new show to The Bridge: “Three Arab Painters in New York.” Curated by Al Jisser member Maymanah Farhat, the show featured works by Palestinian artist Samia Halaby, Iraqi artist Athir Shayota, and Lebanese artist Sumayyah Samaha. A historic exhibition in its nearly unique celebration of Arab art in the New York art world, the show again featured important, moving and beautiful work. Halaby’s pieces included her monumental abstract pieces, visions of Palestine pieced together of color, canvas, and flowing shapes, as well as her series of documentary drawings of the Kafr Qasem massacre. Halaby’s drawings, some stretching from floor to ceiling, commemorated specific incidents in the massacre, committed in 1956 by Zionist forces against Palestinian villagers in Kafr Qasem, a village in Palestine ‘48. Halaby visited Kafr Qasem to speak with survivors and residents of the village, and brought their stories to visual life through her drawings, in which she sought to hew closely to the oral histories she received from the villagers. Shayota’s works, largely portraiture, portray his Iraqi subjects confronting the viewer or going about their daily lives, the threat to their nation from US sanctions and war looming behind the surface. Samaha’s work in the show reflected her newer, more political pieces, using paint, nails, wire and poetry by Palestinian poet Suheir Hammad to confront the war on Iraq and Palestine. During “Three Arab Painters,” The Bridge continued to be a home for Arab, Palestinian and solidarity activism in the city, as AWAAM (Arab Women Active in Arts and Media), with the Arab American Family Services Center, the Arab American Association of New York and the Yemeni American Association celebrated the creativity and accomplishments of Arab youth in the city, and the gallery played host again to numerous meetings, events and film showings.

The accomplishments of Al Jisser and the Bridge Gallery were historic; the gallery presented a space, in the heart of the New York art world, that celebrated and welcomed Arab and Palestinian creativity, and became a living home to the ongoing art of liberation. The shows became a testament to the power of art and culture as part of a national liberation struggle, the gallery providing a home and a basis for community building, organizing and activism. The liberation art on its walls interacted with the activism for liberation in the space, producing an environment that inspired artistic and cultural accomplishment as well as political activism and community empowerment. It was a living illustration of the centrality of liberation art and cultural continuity to the Palestinian movement and the Palestinian nation. As Zionist forces have waged a political and cultural genocide against the Palestinian people, so Palestinians have resisted through all forms of resistance, including fully engaging in the cultural struggle. “Made in Palestine” was a testament to the power of Palestinian cultural resistance, its ongoing importance, and an inspiration to the future of the Palestinian movement for liberation and return.