04-06/10/2019
assembly
Everyday Forms of Resistance
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The Palestinians are not so much human beings as an excuse for warmongering slogans.
- Edward W.Said After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives
- (Aletheia Publishing, Warsaw 2002, Polish translation by Michał Lipszyc)
- In Palestine, „resistance” (مقاومة) is a word with military connotations. Resistance, however, also means small gestures and rituals: preparing meals, cultivating plants, playing host to guests or rebuilding torn-down houses. It means keeping-on existing within the everyday reality.
- In early October, during an assembly at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre of Contemporary Art, artists, and representatives of Palestinian artistic and cultural institutions will meet up. They are going to talk about everyday life in occupied Palestine, about the role of artists, culture practitioners, and institutions in this politically challenging context, and also: about the notions of community and hospitality practices. Stories of everyday tribulations will be a starting point for reflections on the positive aspects of resistance.
- It is the first public event scheduled as part of the long-term Everyday Forms of Resistance project, which allowed several European artists to spend a number of months in Palestine, and research its everyday reality. Simultaneously, Palestinian artists on residence in Poland have been given an opportunity to elaborate on certain threads present in their everyday practice: Mirna Bamieh applies food as an artistic medium, and Mohammad Saleh focuses on the field of agroecology. The assembly at U-jazdowski will be an opportunity for all the participants of the project to meet.
- The assembly is going to last three days. It will be held inside the Fermentation Station, an installation by Mirna Bamieh, a Palestinian artist currently on residence at U-jazdowski. The event will include panel discussions, presentations, performances, and lectures open to the public. Architect and educator Sandi Hilal will speak on the permanent temporality experienced by Palestinian refugees, and about the power of hospitality. Khaldun Bshara, director of RIWAQ Ramallah, will describe spatial divisions Palestinians are faced with every day, and the strategies for restoring architectural heritage in a colonised state. Then, Salim Tamari, an illustrious sociologist of history from the Institute for Palestine Studies, will speak on the armed struggle of Palestinian peasants, and the ways it can be interpreted today. Polish artists, Joanna Rajkowska, Jaśmina Wójcik, and Karolina Grzywnowicz will then share their memories and impressions from their residencies in Ramallah.
- Curated by
- Ika Sienkiewicz-Nowacka
Everyday Forms of Resistance. Film: Marta Wódz
The residencies are financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland, the City of Warsaw and the City of Ramallah
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