Art, Music & Culture

Warsaw Ghetto Abu Dis: Five haikus on the Apartheid Wall

Laurie King
17 February 2004

An obscene monument to the belief that “too much is never enough,” Israel’s monstrous Apartheid Wall is a visible indictment of the racist folly of forcibly separating people from each other and the places they love. The visual and moral affront of the Apartheid Wall prompted these observations, expressed through a subtle Japanese poetic form, the haiku. An ancient Japanese literary form, the haiku embodies the principle that “less is more” and delights in mixing categories and crossing boundaries through the magic of metaphor.

Exhibit in Amman conveys horrors of Israel's separation wall

Rana Sabbagh-Gargour
16 February 2004

Photographs, sound effects, replicas of barrier give visitors feeling of imprisonment, suffocation experienced by Palestinians

The horrifying illusion of a journey through prison confronts anyone visiting the first extensive exhibition on the separation wall that Israel is building on occupied West Bank land. Combining photography, sound effects, replicas of the Israeli-built double walls, medieval-style observation towers, and barbed wire ripping through seized land, the Stop the Wall exhibition, which opened in Amman on Saturday, triggers feelings of pain, anger and claustrophobia.

Interview: Wendy Pearlman, author of 'Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada'

Maureen Clare Murphy
11 February 2004

”If you want the conflict to end and you want peace, can you really afford to ignore their points of view? Go ahead; try to make peace without the Palestinians, without understanding Palestinians’ experiences and their goals as they see them. They’re going to be at war for generations — go ahead,” Wendy Pearlman, author of Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada, tells EI’s Maureen Clare Murphy. Pearlman , who interviewed 27 West Bank and Gazans for her new work oral history, explains to EI the challenges to publishing a book dedicated to understanding the hardships endured by Palestinians under Israeli military occupation.

Film Review: Like Twenty Impossibles (2003)

Tina Dybvik
27 January 2004

”Like Twenty Impossibles” is the work of Annemarie Jacir, co-written with Kamran Rastegar. Jacir is a Palestinian filmmaker, activist, and poet living between New York City and Palestine. The 17-minute short mockumentary tells the story of a journey in a country where checkpoints and a sinister patchwork of controlled areas make freedom of movement itself impossible, aptly portraying the complexities of oppression with a cast and crew that understand it. It is shot on location in Palestine, and the images of guns and power overwhelm the viewer as well as the waylaid film crew.

Review: Poster art of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Maureen Clare Murphy
16 January 2004

Dan Walsh, creator of the online exhibition Antonym/Synonym: The Poster Art of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, thinks that taking a look at political posters can enable “a new democratic discussion.” His website, Liberation Graphics, which features over 100 posters, a mere fraction of his collection, can only be described as a labor of love. Each poster is catalogued with an essay that both analyzes the poster’s formal and conceptual qualities, and places the subject matter within a brief historical context.

Edward Said puts the Palestinian narrative of struggle in a global context in “Culture and Resistance”

Maureen Clare Murphy
9 January 2004

The interviews by David Barsamian with Edward Said in the new book Culture and Resistance: Conversations with Edward Said do not provide any in-depth analysis on a given topic. But they rather serve as meditations - if one can consider Osama bin Laden, malnutrition in Gaza, and misunderstandings between the U.S. and the Arab world topics for meditation. Not intended to provide precise, detailed historical analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the book rather functions to provide a unique perspective on some of the most important problems that plague the world by one of the world’s preeminent thinkers. Maureen Clare Murphy reviews the book for EI.

Photostory: Dancing towards freedom

Maureen Clare Murphy
29 December 2003

Comprised of teenagers from the Dheisheh Refugee Camp in the West Bank, the Ibdaa dance troupe performs internationally, has been featured in documentaries, and are no strangers to the press. And while to some this may seem like a glamorous lifestyle, it seems to the performers it’s anything but. Having to repeatedly communicate to American audiences the every day struggles that come with life under military occupation is disheartening when they return to the West Bank to find that the status quo of curfews and human losses continues unabated while the whole world watches.

Palestine's neglected treasure trove

Laila El-Haddad
27 December 2003

As home to the earliest known human settlements and the world’s holiest cities, historical Palestine is literally a treasure chest of antiquities.  Remnants of Canaanite temples and towns, Byzantine mosaics and monasteries and Mamluk and Ottoman mosques all stand witness to the region’s long and colourful past. Many of the most important archaeological and historical sites are located in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. But years of conflict have left Palestinian antiquities in a sad state and in many cases out of Palestinian control. Al Jazeera reports how archaeology in the occupied territories has become a political matter.

1st Ramallah Film Festival announces call for submissions

24 December 2003

The 1st Ramallah International Film Festival (Spring 2004) is glad to invite all Palestinian filmmakers to participate in the RIFF and submit their films to the “Palestinian Silver Screen” section of the festival. “Palestinian Silver Screen” is a competitive section of the RIFF which will be dedicated solely to Palestinian cinema. It is aimed at creating an annual platform for Palestinian cinema and international exposure to the selected films and their makers. Palestinian Silver Screen is open to all, but will underline the work made today by young, up-coming filmmakers from Palestine and around the world, and will present a kaleidoscope view of their films, documentaries, shorts, video Art and experimental films.

A. M. Qattan Foundation announces 2004 Culture and Science Programme

24 December 2003

Despite the continuing deterioration of life in Palestine in the last three years, the A. M. Qattan Foundation’s Culture and Science Programme enters its fifth year with a number of substantial achievements. As well as continuing to support a number of young artists and creators to reach new stages in their development, the programme has initiated a number of modules for 2004. When the programme was launched in 2000, it included fifteen prizes and grants with a value of $70,500. In 2003, the number of awards and prizes exceeded 30 and reached a total value of $147,500, an increase of 109 percent, despite the obstacles and disruptions affecting all sectors of life under occupation.

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