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Conversation with Freda Guttman, artist & activist in support of Palestine: May 23, 2021 @ 16:00 EDT

5/18/2021

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Register for the online event here
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Freda Guttman, The Earth is Closing in on Us, 2005, this work was included in the March 8, 2021, ECH International Women's Day exhibit: Go; Rise and Strike. ​ From her artist statement: This work fuses archival images of the Nakba with lines of text in red from the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, the great Palestinian poet (1941- 2008). The Nakba of 1948, (‘catastrophe’ in Arabic), created three quarters of a million Palestinian refugees who fled to Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The haunting, iconic photographic images of the Nakba evoke the suffering they experienced and still do – imprinted forever are the forlorn lines of forsaken people moving over the horizon into the unknown, at the beginning of their long journey into dispossession and statelessness. Mahmoud Darwish himself shared that journey, having experienced imprisonment, statelessness and exile himself.
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Freda Guttman, The Right of Return
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Freda Guttman
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Salah D. Hassan

The ECH is appalled by the ongoing violence, rising tensions, and the devastating loss of life in Palestine and Israel. The toll —particularly on civilians, including women and children — has already been far too great. 
 
Please join us for a conversation with Freda Guttman, Montreal-based artist/activist and  Professor Salah D. Hassan, Director of Global Studies in the Arts and Humanities, Michigan State University, Lansing, Michigan on Sunday, May 23 at 4 pm EDT. 

Freda has been a constant voice of solidarity to Palestinian people over a lifetime of activism.  She lives in Montreal and has worked as a printmaker, photographer and  laterally, as an installation artist.

​She has been a longtime supporter of the Embassy Cultural House, participating in the 1984 International Women's Day exhibit, as well as our most recent online IWD exhibit: Go; Rise and Strike in March 2021.

Her work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Canada, the United States and internationally. Guttman has made her art practice and her political activism come together in a series of installations. 

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Among her installations that focus on Palestine/Israel are Diminish Your Cup and Two Family Albums: Canada Park, from 1994 to 2004.  

Join us in solidarity with all those who support a just peace in the Middle East. We are calling for an immediate ceasefire. 
 
As an artist-run project, the ECH condemns the May 15th unjustified ransacking and raid by Israeli Defense Force soldiers on Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art & Research, an independent art centre in Bethlehem. The raid, which destroyed computers and other office equipment, follows the burning of their urban farm earlier in the week. Attacks against cultural centres and other civil society organizations, including the media, are against international law.
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The Dar Jacir urban farm burnt to the ground. Photo: Aline Khoury, credit: Dar Jacir newsletter, May 17,2021

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ECH welcomes Niloufar Salimi as a Contributing Editor

4/12/2021

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We are ​pleased to welcome Niloufar Salimi as our newest contributing editor to the Embassy Cultural House.
 
Niloufar is a visual artist based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  She primarily uses drawing and minimal mixed media to form a narrative between certainty and ambiguity.  Salimi completed her MFA at Western University and received a BFA from OCAD University.
 
Salimi is a multiple recipient of Ontario Arts Council Grants. She currently resides in Toronto. In addition to her studio practice, she works as a Gallery Assistant and Teaching Artist at the Power Plant Contemporary Gallery.
 
Niloufar is one of the artists exhibiting and also assisting in the coordination with the upcoming Earth Day 2021: Stop Extinction! Restore the Earth online exhibit live April 22, 2021. She also participated in the International Women's Day Exhibit: Go; Rise and Strike. 

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ECH to partner with the Toronto Palestine Film Festival on Fall 2021 art program

4/6/2021

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Toronto Palestine Film Festival 2021 design by Hamilton-based illustrator Sama Al Zanoon.
The Embassy Cultural House and the Toronto Palestine Film Festival are pleased to announce a new partnership to collaborate on arts and cultural programming. The Embassy Cultural House (ECH) is looking forward to develop an online art program to coincide with the 2021 Toronto Palestine Film Festival program.

"We are thrilled to partner with the Embassy Cultural House to include a visual arts online exhibition in the 2021 program of the festival. This will add a wonderful new dimension to our activities” said Dania Majid, programmer with the TPFF. 
 
Jamelie Hassan, 2001 Governor General Award Laureate for Visual and Media Arts and co-founder of the ECH said, “Celebrating Palestinian culture and supporting the work of Palestinian artists has been a longstanding commitment for many artists connected to the ECH community. It is with great pleasure that we look forward to future cultural projects with the TPFF.”  

Established in 1983, the Embassy Cultural House was a community-driven gallery and hosted interdisciplinary programs. It closed its physical doors in 1990. In 2020 the Embassy Cultural House was re-envisioned as a virtual artist-run space and community website.

​The Toronto Palestine Film Festival (TPFF) is a volunteer-run, non-profit organization dedicated to bringing Palestinian cinema, music, cuisine and art to GTA audiences. TPFF was conceived in 2008 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Al-Nakba.

The TPFF launched its 14th year with a powerful and futuristic new design by Sama Al Zanoon. Sama is a graphic designer and illustrator based in Hamilton, Ontario. The design is an imagined journey to reclaim Palestinian destinies. This is a fictional space where Palestinians have limitless ability to explore their identity through film, art, and activism. 

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South African newspaper covers ECH event to celebrate Lorraine Klaasen's FCLMA World Music Award

3/13/2021

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The South African newspaper, Sowetan Live, published an article on March 12 on JUNO Award-winner Lorrain Klaasen as part of its International Women's Day coverage. Lorraine, the daughter of the legendary South African performer Thandi Klaasen, remembered all the powerful women who contributed to making her the person she is today.  The article also reported on the sold-out Embassy Cultural House online event held on February 13, 2021  to celebrate Lorraine's 2020 Forest City London Music Award (FCLMA) in the category of World Music.  ECH Co-Founder, Jamelie Hassan, is quoted in the article as describing Lorraine as a strong advocate and powerful voice for women across the globe.  Lorraine recently joined the Advisory Circle of the  ECH to help promote education and awareness of African music, culture and heritage. Read the article online here.
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South African women singers from the 1950s.
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Lorraine with Lena Bulisa
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Lorraine with June Garber, a well known white South African Jazz singer based in Toronto.
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Last concert with Lorraine's mother Thandi Klaasen, paying tribute to her in South Africa 2016.
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S F Ho joins ECH Advisory Circle

1/29/2021

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S F Ho joins ECH Advisory Circle
We are ​pleased to welcome S F Ho to the Embassy Cultural House Advisory Circle. S F Ho, based in Vancouver, British Colombia, has a long history with London, Ontario's cultural and activist community.  Please visit S F Ho's page  and visit their contribution to the ECH's inaugural online exhibition Hiding in Plain Sight.
 
S F Ho is currently working with the ECH on coordinating an upcoming project on Hong  Kong. We look forward  to this upcoming project and other future initiatives. Other members of the Advisory Circle include: Samer Abdelnour, Wyn Geleynse, Fern Helfand,  Judith Rodger, Ruth Skinner and Lucas Stenning. 

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ECH co-founder Jamelie Hassan to participate in Toronto Palestine Film Festival Panel

9/21/2020

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​Jamelie Hassan will be part of a Toronto Palestine Film Festival (TPFF) discussion panel on Cultural Suppression and Revival on Saturday September 26, 2020.  The panel will explore the silencing of Palestinians voices in the cultural sector, as well as showcasing artists reviving Palestinian culture in their work.

 “I am honoured to add my voice to such a distinguished panel and be together with those who stand in solidarity with Palestine and culture here in Canada and across communities internationally. TPFF is inspiring and full of surprises... it's introduction of kid-friendly programs -  its intergenerational dynamic that appeals to all audiences  - grandparents, moms and dads and everyone else, drawn together from Toronto's BIPOC, cultural workers, activists, secular and civil society communities, keen to discover what's new and urgent in Palestinian culture."

-- Jamelie Hassan, London, Ontario

Please visit the TPFF online program for a full listing of films and events. ​

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Collection of Jamelie Hassan's watercolours of the Embassy Hotel painted in 1978

9/3/2020

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In 1978, the owner of the Embassy Hotel, Helen Haller, commissioned her sister, artist Jamelie Hassan, to paint a series of watercolours related to the Embassy, its workers, and residents. The watercolours, a tribute to life in London east neighbourhood, were on display in the hotel lounge for many years. Helen donated these historic watercolours to Museum London's permanent collection in the summer of 2019.

One of these watercolours, Embassy at Nite, will be featured on one of the facade wall of Indwell's new affordable housing project on the site of the old Embassy Hotel (744 Dundas Street) named the "Embassy Commons" in tribute to the location’s past cultural history. The new name was officially announced at the Hope@Home Virtual Gala on June 12, 2020. Hassan Law was a sponsor of the event. For more information, please go to Indwell's page on the the project. 

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EDITORIAL TEAM

ONLINE FOUNDER
Tariq Hassan Gordon

COFOUNDERS & CURATORIAL ADVISORS 
 
Jamelie Hassan 
& Ron Benner

ADVISORY CIRCLE
Samer Abdelnour, Marnie Fleming, Wyn Geleynse, Fern Helfand, S F Ho, Lorraine Klaasen, Judith Rodger, Ruth Skinner, Mary Lou and Dan Smoke,  and Lucas Stenning 

COORDINATING EDITORS
Tariq Hassan Gordon & 
Olivia Mossuto

WEB DESIGN & SOCIAL MEDIA 
Tariq Hassan Gordon, Ira Kazi, Olivia Mossuto, Niloufar Salimi,  JoAnna Weil 

VIRTUAL TOUR
Andreas Buchwaldt

PRINT PUBLICATIONS
Blessy Augustine, Shelley Kopp, 
Olivia Mossuto

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Andreas Buchwaldt, Blessy Augustine, Anahí González, Ira Kazi, ​Shelley Kopp, Ashar Mobeen, Niloufar Salimi,  Jenna Rose Sands, JoAnna Weil & Michelle Wilson. 

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OUR STORY
Artists Jamelie Hassan and Ron Benner and jazz musician Eric Stach founded the Embassy Cultural House (1983-1990) located in the restaurant portion of the Embassy Hotel at 732 Dundas Street in East London. Other former members of the board were: Debrann Eastabrook, Henry Eastabrook, Sharron Forrest, Wyn Geleynse, Janice Gurney, Jean Hay (1929 - 2008), Doug Mitchell, Kim Moodie, Gerard Pas, Peter Rist, Wanda Sawicki, Jean Spence and Jennie White. In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Embassy Cultural House was re-envisioned as a virtual artist-run space and website. 

This project is supported by the Ontario Arts Council and the London Arts Council through the City of London's Community Arts Investment Program.
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Thank you to our partners

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E M B A S S Y  C U L T U R A L  H O U S E . C A

​London, Ontario is on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Lenape, Attawandaron and Huron-Wendat peoples, at the forks of Deshkan Ziibi (Antler River), an area subject to the Dish with One Spoon Wampum and other treaties.

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    • Past Programming >
      • Exhibitions 1983-1990 >
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