A press preview on Saturday of “Jerusalem Lives” displayed works ranging from the abstract to the overtly political.
In one room, a four-wall photographic panorama surrounds visitors with images of the ring of Israeli settlements around Jerusalem.
In the garden, a green staircase climbs skywards from inside a mesh cage, seemingly referencing the confinement of the Palestinians by Israel’s occupation.
But the symbolism of the staircase, coming to a dead end in mid-air, is open to interpretation.
AFP
Curator Reem Fadda said the collection was meant to spark discussion of “cultural resistance” to the policies of Israel, which occupied east Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.
The West Bank and Gaza Strip were occupied in the same year but not annexed, and their occupants need special—and hard-to-get—Israeli permits to visit Jerusalem.
—
“The aim of this exhibition was really to provide a way for us to think in a creative way how can we resist this hegemony of Israeli occupation that is facing the city of Jerusalem through a cultural stance,” she told AFP in English.
Another goal of the show, she said, was to “present Jerusalem to the people of Palestine that can’t go to Jerusalem”.
In other words, they could not even open with an exhibit representing their identity. Everything is about opposing Israel’s history.
(full article online)
Palestinian Museum’s First Exhibit Says It All About Palestinian Identity
