Ecco li progetto palestinese che si svolgerà presso Liceo Artistico Statale di Venezia (LASV) of Palazzo Ca' Giustinian Recanati,Dorsoduro 1012, con gli artisti Bashir Makhoul & Aissa Deebi , titolo del progetto Otherwise Occupied
Comunicato stampa:
Otherwise Occupied is an exhibition of Palestinian artists organized by
al Hoash as part of the 55th International Art Exhibition at Venice Biennale 2013.
Curated by Bruce Ferguson and Rawan Sharaf, the exhibition features two
internationally renowned Palestinian artists; Bashir Makhoul and Aissa Deebi.
Both artists were born inside the 1948 borders, in the margins of another state
in their homeland and outside the occupied West Bank and the centres of
contemporary Palestinian culture and have emigrated to become citizens of other
states operating in a globalised art world. They still think of themselves as
Palestinians and are in continuous search of new ways to imagine the nation
from a distance.
Palestine, long under
occupation, has been constructed by the imaginary of widely fragmented
communities across the world; a far-flung diaspora, a huge population of
refugees, as well as members of an indeterminate territorial authority under
occupation and even a large number of Israeli citizens. There exist
simultaneously no Palestinian state and many Palestinian states. It is the
quintessence of Benedict Anderson’s classic formulation of nationhood as
‘imagined communities.’
Art is capable of occupying
cultural spaces that are otherwise inaccessible or invisible. Otherwise
Occupied describes other ways of imagining the nation outside and beyond the
conflict; it is therefore a means of artistic and critical thinking through the
de-territorialization of Palestine.
To be otherwise occupied is to
be busy elsewhere, to be engaged in activities outside the programme. For these
artists this means making work that does not necessarily comply with the
agendas determined by the occupation. The ‘otherwise’ for them is an imaginary,
parallel space beyond the claims of nationalism that is opened up by global
cultural events such as the Venice Biennale. They are extending this idea in
thinking of the exhibition as an ‘otherwise occupied’ space within the city and
the Biennale which at the same time engages with the concept of the imaginary
museum and the perpetually deferred utopian optimism of the ‘Palazzo
Enciclopedico’.
Bashir Makhoul
Giardino Occupato
Bashir Makhoul will be
occupying the garden of the Liceo Artistico Statale di Venezia with thousands
of cardboard box houses. The occupation will be partly made by members of the
public during the exhibition, who can view the growing cardboard shanty-town
but will also be able to construct their own house from a stack of flat boxes.
This piece is a further
exploration of Makhoul's large-scale installation Enter Ghost Exit Ghost, which
consists of a full-sized, interior maze and a large cardboard model of an Arab
town or refugee camp and raises questions about the kinds of spaces that have
emerged in sites of conflict and in the urban margins of globalization. This
piece will be emphasizing the performative aspects of occupation – the act of
getting there and of filling the space.
Bashir Makhoul is a Palestinian artist based in the UK. Over 20 years
of work he has developed a body of work in a range of media which explored
aesthetics of modernism and post-modernism as well as offering nuanced
political critiques on topics of economics, nationalism, identity, war and
torture. His work is widely exhibited in Britain and internationally. Makhoul
is currently the Head of the Winchester School of Arts – Southampton
University.
Aissa Deebi
The Trial
A two-channel installation,
HD/DVD 15 minute loop, accompanied by 24 drawings
This two-channel installation
consists of a re-enactment in English of a speech by Daoud Turki at the Haifa
court house in 1973, when he was a defendant during a military trial. Turki, a
Palestinian-Arab citizen of Israel, had been arrested by the Israeli military
with four other members of the “Red Front” and charged with espionage and
collaboration with the enemy. In this speech, Turki tried to advance an idea
against the paranoid Zionist fantasy of conflict toward the larger idea of a
socialist class struggle, proclaiming solidarity with “…all workers, peasants
and those persecuted in Israel society.” The brilliance of his rhetoric and the
fullness of his reasoned argument, in which he criticizes Zionism for pitting
Jews against Arabs, is caught as an address almost from Franz Kafka’s “The
Trial” which echoes throughout as the tone of an idealist caught in the jaws of
the heinous militaristic state.
Aissa Deebi is a Palestinian artist and scholar based in Cairo and
New York. His works investigates a range of notions around immigration and
alienation, Diaspora as a creative space and cultural-migration. Deebi held
several positions teaching art and design in international institutions, and
has been involved in the establishment and running of art organizations. He is
the Director of the Visual Cultures Program at the American Universtity in
Cairo.
About Al Hoash Al Hoash is a Jerusalem based, non-profit Palestinian
organization that seeks the development and elevation of the status of visual
arts as a substantial and critical tool for communication, innovation,
pleasure, free expression and national pride. Al Hoash seeks to produce and
disseminate knowledge through programs that are research based, community
linked and provide platforms for education, discourse and critical analysis.
Sponsors Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton
American University in Cairo
