THE STATE OF PALESTINE
The ECH is appalled by the recent 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. Join us in solidarity with all those who support a just peace in the Middle East.
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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. 
Photo credit: Jamelie Hassan
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PROJECTS ON PALESTINE
WORKS ON PALESTINE
Ron Benner |
Freda Guttman |
Alberto Gomez |
Jayce Salloum |
COMMUNITY CONTRIBUTIONS
ECH represented in solidarity with Palestine from unceded Coast Salish territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ nations, May 15th Nakba Day, 2021.
Photo credit: S F Ho |
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ECH represented at the Pro-Palestinian protest in Toronto, Ontario, May 22, 2021. Photo credit: Andreas Buchwaldt
RON BENNER
Ron Benner, Trans/mission: Wednesday, May 19, 2021.
Trans/mission: Wednesday, May 19, 2021
Digital Print with The Globe And Mail opinion essay by former Canadian Ambassador to Israel Jon Allen. Cochineal and lime juice on Arches paper, mortar and pestle, pencil, Mexican stencils, ruler and other tools.
ALBERTO GOMEZ & DOT TUER
A short statement written by Alberto Gomez in response to the Gaza bombings and in solidarity with the anti-colonial struggles of the Palestine people. English translation by Dot Tuer.
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Palestina, siempre fue para los latinoamericanos, memoria emblemática.
Nunca olvidaré cuando en la cárcel, como prisionero político de la dictadura militar de Argentina, en una visita de la Cruz Roja Internacional, le mencioné al delegado nuestras condiciones de aislamiento y tortura por parte del régimen militar, y el me respondió que estuvo recientemente en el medio oriente y que la situación de los prisioneros palestinos en prisiones israelíes, eran peores que las nuestras. No pude imaginarme que mas crueldad había contra seres humanos, que luchaban por su liberación. Regresé al pabellón a informarle a mis compañeros de la conversación con el organismo internacional, y su repuesta. Nos quedamos en silencio, conmovidos, por semejante comentarios; cuando a nosotros nos sacaban de nuestras celdas, nos torturaban y mataban. Pasábamos años aislados sin visitas de nuestros familiares, con las celadas vacías, sin nada, sin libros, sin cartas, sin alimentos, solo un plato para la comida y un jarro para el agua y 24 horas de encierro sin luz natural. ¿Que mas había para torturar a un prisionero político? Quedamos impactados y pensamos mucho en nuestros hermanos et hermanas palestinos como estarían pasando. Hoy 40 años después, aun hay mas de 5000 prisioneros palestinos, algunos de ellos seguramente desde esos tiempos y continuando su lucha libertaria. Fue en el marco de la guerra fría, cuando los movimientos de liberación nacional latinoamericanos reconocieron la causa palestina, e inmediatamente estrecharon vínculos como parte de esos procesos de descolonización. Hoy la causa Palestina sigue vigente y las demostraciones de solidaridad con el pueblo palestino, jamás fue olvidada. Siempre, en todas manifestaciones masivas en Latinoamérica se verá una bandera, negra, blanca, verde y un triangulo rojo: la bandera de los palestinos, con nosotros. ALBERTO A GOMEZ Ateneo Liberación, Corrientes, Argentina https://www.revistaliberacion.com.ar |
Palestine for Latin Americans was always an emblematic memory.
I will never forget while in prison – it was 1978 and I was a political prisoner during the military dictatorship in Argentina – of speaking to a delegate from the International Red Cross about our inhumane conditions of isolation and torture and the delegate responding that he had recently been in the Middle East and that the situation of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons was much worse than ours. I could not imagine that there was even more cruelty against fellow human beings who were fighting for their liberation. I returned to my pavilion to inform my compañeros of what the delegate from the Red Cross had said. We were shocked and silenced by his comments. The military acted with such impunity in Argentina. They took us from our cells, they tortured and killed us. We had spent years isolated, without visits from our relatives, in empty cells, with nothing, no books, no letters, only a plate for food and a jug for water, confined 24 hours a day without natural light. What more could be done to torture a political prisoner? We were deeply affected by how our Palestinian brothers and sisters were suffering. Today, 44 years later, there are more than 5000 Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails, some of them probably from that time, who continue their struggle for liberation. It was in the context of the Cold War that Latin American national liberation movements made common cause with Palestine’s right to self-determination and strengthened ties with Palestinian people to support their anti-colonial struggle. Today demonstrations of solidarity with the Palestinian people and their struggle for liberation continue to take place across Latin America. Their injustices have never been forgotten. And always, in all the demonstrations in Latin America for people’s rights – in Colombia, in Chile, in Argentina – you will see a flag, black, white, green and a red triangle, the flag of the Palestinians, among us and with us. ALBERTO A GOMEZ Ateneo Liberación, Corrientes, Argentina https://www.revistaliberacion.com.ar |
FREDA GUTTMAN
Freda Guttman, Two Family Albums: Canada Park, from 1994 to 2004.
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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. |
JAMELIE HASSAN
Jamelie Hassan, Palestine's Children, 1990-91, glazed tile, based on original image by Salwa el Sawahly, age 14, resident Rafah Refugee Camp, Gaza
In the summer of 1990, I travelled to Palestine at the invitation of two Palestinian women activists, Assia Habash (1936-2016) in Jerusalem and Jacquline Sfeir (1956-2013), in Bethlehem who had brought the exhibition Faithful Witness to the Embassy Cultural House. This was a collection of artworks created by Palestinian children in response to the Israeli occupation and documenting the first Intifada. The ECH's 1989 exhibition was done in collaboration with The Near East Cultural & Educational Foundation, Toronto. After attending the hunger strike by the Palestinian leadership which included Hanan Ashrawi (1946-) and Faisal Husseini (1940-2001) at the Red Cross Garden in Jerusalem, I joined with a team of Doctors without Borders to travel to Gaza. There, I was able to visit the work of one of the young artists, Salwa el Sawahly, from Rafah Refugee Camp whose paintings documented every aspect of the Intifada. The tiles which I created were inspired by these images and were part of an installation titled Palestine's Children, 1990-1991.
MIREYA FOLCH-SERRA
On the Apartheid Wall surrounding the city of Bethlehem, a mural with the 5-pointed star flag of the Catalan independent movement, the estelada, appears near Handala, the symbol of Palestinian resistance surrounded by blue. Under the Palestinian flag is the word "llibertat", freedom in Catalan. The flags and Handala are surrounded by young figures raising their hands with signs of hope and defiance that represent the aspirations of both peoples: Palestinians and Catalans. The mural is signed with the name of an ancient village located in the Catalan Pyrenees: Gramenet.
JAYCE SALLOUM
untitled part 3b: (as if) beauty never ends..
Jayce Salloum, 11:22, 2000 (2002)
As Gaza & the West Bank of Palestine continue to be attacked brutally and regularly by Israeli forces it is important to remember that these attacks have taken place throughout the last 74 years. This film was made shortly after the January - February 2002 massacres when 497 Palestinians were killed, 1,447 wounded and 7,000 people were detained by Israel.
In those two months there was an estimated $361 million USD worth of damage caused to Palestinian homes, hospitals and other institutions. This film is a more ambient work of many things, including orchids blooming, and plants growing, superimposed over raw footage from post massacre filmings of the 1982 massacre at Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon.
Cloud footage, Hubbell space imagery, the visible body crosscuts, and abstract shots of slow motion water, add to this reflection of the past, its present context and forbearance. With the voice over of Abdel Majid Fadl Ali Hassan (a 1948 refugee living in Bourg El Barajneh camp) recounting a story told by the rubble of his home in Palestine, and the collection of audio accompanying the clips, the tape permeates into an intense essay on dystopia in contemporary times. Working directly, viscerally, and metaphorically the videotape provides an elegiac response to the Palestinian dispossession.
