Made in Palestine: Meditations on Truth

By Mary Fifield and Margaret Michniewicz

Photos: Margaret Michniewicz

Vermont is held in high regard as a distinctly special place – by those beyond our borders but particularly by those of us who call the Green Mountains our home. Consider, if you will, that this patch of geography is comprised of 251 towns and approximately 500,000 people. What must it mean, then, to a Palestinian that 700,000 people were driven from their homes and 418 villages razed, in the land they called home, as happened in 1948? Their name for it is Al Nakba – the Catastrophe.

The legacy of Al Nakba necessarily informs Palestinian society wherever it is found: in refugee camps, prisons, within the state of Israel, in exile abroad; the diaspora extends, literally and figuratively, far beyond the West Bank security fence or PLO headquarters.

(left) Stylized works in crayon of prison life by Muhammad Rakouie, who lives in a refugee camp in Damascus.

(right) Homes for the Disembodied in 50 continuous yards of silk, by Mary Tuma, on display this fall at the T.W. Wood Gallery in Montpelier

Some of the 23 artists included in this exhibit now live in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, or the United States while most remain in the Palestinian cities of Betunia, Gaza, Ramallah, Nazareth, Jerusalem.

Despite – or perhaps because of – the constant state of violence and grief they’ve experienced, the need to create prevails, as does the fervent desire to express ones identity as woman, as parent, as Palestinian, as artist, as freedom fighter, as oppressed, as enraged, as poet, as lover… as human.

Made in Palestine is a powerful collection not just because of its basis in tragic reality, but more so from the innovative artistry of the contributing individuals. These are contemporary artists working within the taglines of modernism and postmodernism, employing diverse but typical media: oils, paper, video, sculpture, textiles, ceramics, and photography. And sometimes not so typical art materials – chocolate, for example, used skillfully to ironic effect by Rana Bishara in Blindfolded History. With the connotations of the Arabic phrase dunia helweh (“life is sweet”), scenes of bloodshed, horror, and sorrow are silk-screened in chocolate resembling dried blood, onto plates of glass suspended from the ceiling. Spotlights angled painstakingly to just the right position reinforce the effect by creating a second shadowy image on the wall behind that echoes the terrible scene. “I thought they were just being very anal,” admits Joyce Mandeville, executive director of the T.W. Wood Gallery as she describes the process of this part of the exhibit being set up.

Mary Fifield, a musician and visual artist living in Barre, also visited the show and shared the following thoughts:

The overarching theme unifying this show is resistance through bearing witness. From the point of view of these courageous artists – including some who have been imprisoned and tortured by the Israeli government – voice, face, feeling, history and some glimpses of a hopeful future are given form in imagery that is raw and delicate, full of human dignity despite terrible loss and suffering, strength, wit and innocence. It is not a 360-degree perspective, nor does it claim to be.

In John Halaka’s wall sized Stripped of Their Identity and Driven from Their Land 1993/1997/2003 “forgotten survivors” stride naked, darkly mournful, eyes downcast, heads bald as any Dachau concentration camp prisoner in a wounded panoramic exodus that recalls a biblical “Trail of Tears.” Their bodies vibrate with a thousand composite rubber stamped ink letters spelling out “forgotten survivors” in a dynamic kinetic visual that radiates in every direction mimicking strobe light tracers in slow motion. The children’s bodies look like mini-adults. A male figure dominates the foreground, stooped under the burden of a fallen brother, like a soldier dragging a wounded comrade from battle. Rajie Cook’s A Time to Cast Stones is described as a “pun on weaponry” that contrasts the “powerful sophisticated military arms” the United States supplies to Israel with the stones that Palestinian children and adults throw at Israeli troops and tanks. The oversize olive green metal ammo container stamped mechanically with black inventory ID is filled to the top with stones, irregular, from the earth, from the rubble of bulldozed Palestinian homes. Noel Jabbour’s photographed family portraits called Vacant Seats depict the loss of loved ones who have fallen victim to the violence of the Intifada. The figures of the surviving members of the Al-Azami family stand in front of a huge stylized pastel painting of the lost son who was still young enough to convey adolescent sexual ambiguity with a large soft mouth, huge shining eyes and an enigmatic expression. Father stands stiffly tall, hands behind his back, feet spread; his face is set, defiant eyes broadcasting pain, pride and rage. Mother, her face a mix of fear and loss, protectively holds little sister who looks sadly vulnerable, crushed at the age of nine into wearing a visage old beyond her years. Finally, there stands older brother, who looks on the edge of daring to join the resistance, eyes coolly fierce, his body held in relaxed tension.

Art’s role in culture has been, to both reflect human life and revolutionize human thought by questioning the authoritative “reality.”. Made in Palestine succeeds on both counts in stunningly old and new meditations on whose “truth” should be allowed an audience. While this is not the “whole” truth for everyone it is a “truth” for these witnesses as they see it. It insists on the right to have their say. Here the artists speak and though they speak in this show of themselves, they speak to us all, make of it what we will. 

The appearance of “Made in Palestine” in Vermont was made possible by a grant from the Lintilhac Foundation. The exhibit, in expanded form, first opened at Houston’s Station Museum, then traveled to San Francisco; it will be on view from March 14 through April 22, 2006 at The Bridge, 521 W. 26th St., 3rd Floor, NY, NY. Opening reception March 16, 6:00-9:00 p.m. Info: (212)966-3517 or www.aljisser.org.

For more images: madeinpalestine.org/indexc.html