Everyday Forms of Resistance – Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art

The new edition of the Everyday Forms of Resistance project brings together artists and cultural workers from Poland, Palestine and Flanders, and will take place from 21 to 30 August 2022 in Ramallah, Palestine.

The long-term project is the result of a collaboration between the City of Ramallah and the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, initiated in 2016. It includes artistic residencies, meetings, seminars, and publications. The culmination of the first stage of the project was the 2021 exhibition presented at U–jazdowski in 2021 which was visited by over 20,000 viewers.

The artists taking part in the project avoid political rhetoric, and instead focus on cultivating memory and constructing identity through referring to old customs and traditions. Care, tenderness, attentiveness, growing plants typically belong to the feminine domain. They are practised in Palestine, which has been under occupation for over 70 years, but also in Europe, where they’ve become an alternative to relations based on violence and exploitation. In 2022, the refugee experience (well known to the Palestinians) has affected – as a result of Russian aggression against Ukraine and for the first time in many years in Europe – hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian residents.

In summer 2022, we are planning a series of a series of longer and shorter artistic residencies for the Polish participants of Everyday Forms of Resistance and former residents of the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art: Mirna Bamieh, Wim Catrysse, Maja Demska, Mohammad Saleh, Krysia Jędrzejewska-Szymek, Jaśmina Wójcik, Marta Wódz, Michelle Woods. Together with Palestinian co-organizers and representatives of local communities, activists and creatives, they will develop a concept for the Palestinian version of the project.

What themes should we retain, and which should we abandon? Can resistance be peaceful? Can it be manifested through the practices of everyday life? Can the themes explored in this project relate to the global context? Can they impact the Palestinian public? How can we share knowledge and support each other?

The Assembly will be semi-public. It will include a number of informal workshops, walks and cooking together, allowing participants to share skills, get to know each other and converse. The open formula of the programme is to encourage dialogue and bring the project closer to the Palestinian audience.

• Curator
  • Ika Sienkiewicz-Nowacka
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• Coordination
  • Aleksandra Biedka
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• Co-curators and co-organizers from Palestine

  • Sally Abu Bakr

  • Majd Nasrallah

  • Yazid Anani