‘Here we shall stay.
Do your worst.
We guard the shade
Of olive and fig.
We blend ideas
Like yeast in dough.
Our nerves are packed with ice
And hellfire warms our hearts’
Tawfiq Zayyad
Gathering within Constellations is a two-day creative and discursive program envisioned as a series of intimate and informal assemblies around film, poetry, food and exhibitions. The program runs in tandem with the exhibition Constellations of Multiple Wishes: Along the Eastern Horizon and also includes the opening of a new exhibition, Gaza Remains the Story, prepared by the Palestinian Museum.
Collectively, the aim of these meetings is to gather with friends and strangers to explore how creative practice and culture can be active sites of transnational solidarity and resistance. The gatherings will dwell on the connecting tissue between the artistic and political, exploring the role of art, poetry and film in liberatory movements both historically and in the present.
We gather with intention, convening around friendship and nourishing conversation with the knowledge that we may not find the answers to today’s most urgent questions but remain assured by the will and desire to think things through together.
Admission to the museum will remain free and open to all for the duration of the program. Join us.
PROGRAM
Participants: Bayan Abu Nahla, Essa Grayeb, Sima Kokotović, Massimiliano Mollona, Alice Ongaro Sartori, Angelina Radaković
Tuesday, 5 November 2024
17:00–19:00 screening of the film Off Frame AKA Revolution Until Victory (2016), 60’
Director: Mohanad Yaqubi, writers: Reem Shilleh & Mohanad Yaqubi, editors: Ramzi Hazboun & David Osit. English with Arabic subtitles. The film will be followed by a talk in English.
The film is a meditation on the Palestinian people's struggle to produce an image and self-representation on their own terms in the 1960s and 1970s, with the establishment of the Palestine Film Unit as part of the PLO. Unearthing films stored in archives across the world after an unprecedented research and access, the film begins with popular representations of modern Palestine and traces the works of militant filmmakers in reclaiming image and narrative through revolutionary and militant cinema. In resurrecting a forgotten memory of struggle, Off Frame reanimates what is within the frame, but also weaves a critical reflection by looking for what is outside it, or what is off frame.
19:00–20:00 guided tour of the exhibition Constellations of Multiple Wishes: Along the Eastern Horizon by: Essa Grayeb, Bojana Piškur, Angelina Radaković. The tour is in English.
20:00 opening of the exhibition Gaza Remains the Story organized by the Palestinian Museum.
The exhibition Gaza Remains the Story covers several themes that shed light on central aspects of the history of Palestine and the Palestinian cause. It offers glimpses of Palestine's history, art and geography, which includes Palestine before borders, through the British military and Partition Plan under the Mandate, to its current reality. The exhibition covers the history of the extensive wars that have devastated this land; wars that have stemmed from the political and economic ambitions of the major powers for its vast resources and cultural heritage. It also documents the series of aggressive Israeli attacks and wars on Gaza since the year 2000, ending with the prevailing genocidal war. As another theme, the exhibition highlights the colonial bias of international law in favour of Israel. This also covers the use of the United States of America’s veto power in the Security Council on every resolution relating to Palestine and Israel, and the impact of this on the right of return of Palestinian refugees and the right to self-determination. The result has been a lack of Palestinian confidence in the ability of international law to implement justice. The exhibition highlights what has blossomed in its stead: an abiding hope deriving from global solidarity movements spanning the 1920s to the present day that has bolstered the Palestinian insistence on the right to life.
20:00–22:00 social event, catering: Kulturno društvo Anatolija.
Kulturno društvo Anatolija brings together women who were forced to leave Turkey with their families due to political persecution and have made a home in Ljubljana. They make a living doing occasional work such as selling and preparing traditional Turkish food and teaching handicrafts, in particular teaching workshops in the traditional ebru technique of painting with water.
Wednesday, 6 November 2024
16:00–18:00 They Claim There is No Resistance, poetry workshop
‘If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale‘
Refaat Alareer
Join us for a poetry sharing session with Angelina Radaković and friends. Using Tawfiq Zayyad’s poem that hangs in the exhibition Constellation of Multiple Wishes: Along the Eastern Horizon as a departure point, this gathering aims to explore the poetics of resistance and solidarity. Participants are invited to bring to the session a poem or a text, in any language, that speaks to them of resistance, of anguish, of hope. We will collectively read, translate, and discuss how the written word and poetry can be powerful ingredients in emancipatory efforts.
We convene with snacks, drinks, and nourishing conversation.
18:00–19:30 talk by Essa Grayeb: In the Sweet Hours and Bitter Hours: Suspension and the Politics of Waiting in Palestinian Art
“My Whole Heart Is with You” is a nearly 9-minute video montage, played on a loop at the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova. The video features moments of silence and pauses between sentences from one of the most iconic Arab speeches of the 20th century – Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser's resignation speech following the 1967 defeat. During this artist talk, Palestinian artist Essa Grayeb will present his ongoing body of work, developed since 2019, and explore how Palestinian art engages with suspension through metaphors of waiting and displacement. The talk is also a reading into contemporary Palestinian art in light of the ongoing Nakba and the genocide happening in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon.
The talk will be followed by a discussion (in English).
More on the participants:
Bayan Abu Nahla
A visual artist from Gaza, where she studied graphic design. Bayan has worked on offering innovative art workshops for children and adolescents, focusing on comic creation as a means of artistic expression and enhancing imagination. She was compelled to leave Gaza during the war, and she is currently in Marseille, France, as part of an artistic residency.
Essa Grayeb is a Palestinian visual artist based in Jerusalem. His practice traverses a range of media, primarily photography, moving image and installation. Often related to Arab nationalism and Pan-Arabism, his work originates from exploring elements connected to historical moments within the collective memories and forgetfulness and their manifestations in popular culture.
Sima Kokotović is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. His research examines intersections of film cultures and leftist politics in the global context. Parallel to teaching and writing, he contributed to co-organizing several projects that center and explore the political capacities of contemporary film culture.
Massimiliano Mollona develops institutional experiments around the notion of ‘commons’ – cross-sectional spaces of political and economic autonomy – as teacher, researcher, curator, activist and filmmaker. Based on a participatory methodology that brings together critical anthropological enquiry and art interventions, his research focuses on class, labor, and decolonial and postcapitalist transformations. Mollona has taught Anthropology of Art and Political Anthropology at Goldsmiths, London and currently teaches at the Department of the Arts (DAR) at the University of Bologna. He is founding member of the Institute of Radical Imagination (IRI).
Alice Ongaro Sartori works in the field of visual culture and publishing. Her research focuses on the intersection of nature and culture. She is part of wetlands, a publishing house dedicated to issues of social and environmental sustainability, for which she coordinates communication and special projects. She is a doctoral candidate in art history at Universität Hamburg. Previously, she was co-curator of the Floating Cinema (2020-2022), MICROCLIMA, and the Ocean Space public program (2019-2021) and she has collaborated with Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia / Nation Film School of Italy. She lives and works in Venice.
Angelina Radaković is a curator and cultural organizer based in London, UK. Her current research resides in the relationship between time and memory in the context of the foundations of the non-aligned movement. She curated Constellations of Multiple Wishes: Along the Eastern Horizon at MG+MSUM, Ljubljana with Bojana Piškur. She holds a BA in History of Art (SOAS, London) and an MA in Postcolonial Cultures and Global Policy (Goldsmiths University, London). She is currently the curator at The Mosaic Rooms, London.
