Panel 1
Reflections on visual collective memory: a forgotten iconic turn
A.M Qattan Foundation
02-11-2022
11:00 - 12:30
The starting point for this panel's discussion is the photography exhibition "La mer patrie" (2019), curated by Manal Khader, featuring works by Fouad Elkhoury & Jeremy Peacock that depict Palestinian life in Beirut between 1982 and 1985. In conversation with scholars of visual memory and historians of photography, this period will be discussed as an extended event to allow for the development of narratives that break down the documented moments from a contemporary perspective.
Artist, filmmaker, and writer based in Ramallah. Her artistic practice focuses on online visual culture and traces subversive routes for the circulation of images and goods
Participants:
Manal Khader
Manal Khader is a Palestinian writer, editor and actress based in Beirut. Since 2018 she is the director of Mina Image Centre, a cultural space in Beirut. Manal was a co- founder of Kalamon – a Beirut based cultural quarterly review, and was its co-editor until 2015. She played leading and supporting roles in Arab and international films, and in 2015, she co-wrote and performed with Rabih Mroué a theatrical play entitled "Ode to Joy”.
Nassar is the co-editor of Jerusalem Quarterly (Arabic: Hawliyat al-Quds) and author of a number of books and articles, among them Laqatat Mughayirah (Different Snapshots: The History of Early Local Photography in Palestine)
Raouf Haj Yahiya
Born in Tayibe in the Triangle region. He is an artist and photographer and he take a special interest in contemporary arts. He holds a BA in Social Studies from Birzeit University 2003, and an MA in the History of Art from Tel Aviv University. Haj Yahiyah worked as a teacher in the Photography Department in BZU between 2002 – 2005, and in Dar Al Kalimah for Arts and Culture between 2014 – 2018. He currently teaches in the Art Department in Musrara – Jerusalem. Haj Yahiya has exhibited his artistic work locally and internationally. His artistic works include: Ghabash (2005), Gaza Express (2006), Square Meter (2009), The Stories of Uncle Dayton (2012), I will let it gather dust Dust (2017).
Panel 2
Before, during and after Beirut
A.M Qattan Foundation
02-11-2022
16:00 - 17:30
The trauma of the exit from Beirut reshaped the self-perception and influenced the internal discourse, as well as the regional and international one, marked by an ideological transformation in the attitudes of the Palestinian leadership and the individual.
In this session representatives from the social and anthropological disciplines will discuss and critically inspect the development of events, and expand the discussion about social, political and cultural transformations of the Palestinian society.
Moderator: Lyana Saleh
She is a Palestinian journalist and filmmaker based in Paris since 2005, and has more than 15 years of experience in Film, TV and Radio. She is best known for her daily cultural show on France 24 thaqafa A program about books,films,music, visual and performing arts. She is also a Eurodoc graduate 2015 ( An in depth training program in creative documentary production) . A comedian in a Syrian tragedy which premiered in IDFA 2019 is her first long feature documentary as a producer. She also co-produced with the Danish producer Signe Byrge Sorenson the award winning documentary Our memory belongs to us by Rami Farah in 2021.In 2015 she won “ Le Grand prix” in FIGRA festival in France for her documentary film “the Raqqa rebel”. Lyana has also participated as a Juror in film festivals in Italy,Spain and Irak.
Participants:
Prof. Hamid Dabashi
Born in 1951 into a working-class family in Iran, Hamid Dabashi finished his college education in Tehran, before moving to the United States, where he received a dual Ph.D. in Sociology of Culture and Islamic Studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 1984, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University. He is currently the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York, the oldest and most prestigious Chair in Iranian Studies. Professor Dabashi has written more than two dozens books, edited 4, and contributed chapters to many more. He is also the author of over 100 essays, articles and book reviews in major scholarly and peer reviewed journals on subjects ranging from Iranian Studies, medieval and modern Islam, comparative literature, world cinema, and the philosophy of art (trans-aesthetics). He is the founding member of Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, as well as a founding member of the Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University, where he founded Dreams of a Nation: A Palestinian Film Project. Dabashi is also a public speaker around the globe, a current affairs essayist, and a staunch anti-war activist.
Leila Shahid
Shahid was the first woman ambassador of Palestine from 1989 to 2015. She was born in Beirut in 1949 from Palestinian parents exiled in Lebanon long before the Nakba. She studied Anthropology and media at the American University of Beirut when it was a hub for Palestinian political activism (1968-1972) She was, like her political friends, active in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon from 1968 to 1974 when she left Beirut to pursue her academic studies in France. Leila Shahid represented Palestine in Ireland, the Netherland, UNESCO , France and finally Belgium , Luxembourg and the European Union . She retired from official diplomatic activities in 2015 and works now with Palestinian civil society and solidarity movements in EuropeAlia Rayyan
Dr. Alia Rayyan
Alia Rayyan has a Ph.D. in cultural studies and holds a MA degree in International Politics.focusing on the Middle East, Sociology, and Art History (Leuphana University, University of Hamburg, School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London). She has over 15 yearsof work experience as an art critic, academic, cultur manager, policy advisor, and curator in Berlin, Beirut, New York, Amman, and Ramallah for international organizations and educational institutions. Rayyan co-founded the art magazine "Bidoun" for contemporary art from the MENA region and directed Al Hoash Gallery - the Palestinian Art Court in Jerusalem between 2013 and 2016. As curator and academic, Rayyan is interested in creating new forms of knowledge production and interdisciplinarity, which she implemented in the socially engaged urban interventions in Jerusalem, encouraging aPalestinian counter-public space. In 2014, she co-founded Filmlab Palestine with Hanna Atallah, where she is currently a content developer. Her work experiences informed her doctoral dissertation, "Decolonizing Socially Engaged Art Practice in Non-Western Context which she completed at Leuphana University in 2022. Alia Rayyan pursues the interest ofgenerating a close dialogue between practical experiences and theory.
A Palestinian scholar, poet and architect. He was born 1978 in Al Rimal neighborhood in Gaza. He received his early schooling in Gaza and then he moved to the UK to study architecture. Dr. Bsaisso has a bachelor’s degree in Architecture and an MA and PHD in International Media from Cardiff University in Wales. He worked as a spokesperson for the Palestinian government between 2013 – 2015, and then he served as Minister of Culture in the National Unity government between 2015 – 2019. He participated in establishing the National Palestinian Library, and he chaired its board of directors until June 2021. He is now the Deputy President of Dar Al Kalimah for Communication and International Relations.
Panel 3
The Palestinian character in Cinema
A.M Qattan Foundation
03-11-2022
13:30 - 15:00
What were the consequences of the Palestinian exodus from Beirut on the representation and development of the Palestinian character in cinema? Outstanding filmmakers and witnesses of the transformation discuss how Palestinians were portrayed in screenplays, how they were shaped through the lens of filmmakers before, during, and after the exodus from Beirut.
Moderator:
Lyana Saleh
She is a Palestinian journalist and filmmaker based in Paris since 2005, and has more than 15 years of experience in Film, TV and Radio. She is best known for her daily cultural show on France 24 thaqafa A program about books,films,music, visual and performing arts. She is also a Eurodoc graduate 2015 ( An in depth training program in creative documentary production) . A comedian in a Syrian tragedy which premiered in IDFA 2019 is her first long feature documentary as a producer. She also co-produced with the Danish producer Signe Byrge Sorenson the award winning documentary Our memory belongs to us by Rami Farah in 2021.In 2015 she won “ Le Grand prix” in FIGRA festival in France for her documentary film “the Raqqa rebel”. Lyana has also participated as a Juror in film festivals in Italy,Spain and Irak.
Nadia Yaqub is professor of Arab cultures in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the author of Pens, Swords, and the Springs of Art: The Oral Poetry of Weddings in the Galilee (Brill 2006), Palestinian Cinema in the Days of Revolution (University of Texas Press, 2018, shortlisted for the Palestine Book Award in 2019) and numerous articles and book chapters on Arabic film and literature. She also coedited Bad Girls of the Arab World (University of Texas Press, 2017) with Rula Quawas. Her second edited collection, Gaza on Screen, is forthcoming from Duke University Press in 2023.
Born in the village of Jish in upper galilille and he currently lives in Akka. He holds a BA in public communication and Fine Arts from Haifa University and a Diploma in script writing from the script writing school in Tel Aviv. He established in 2016 “Dafe’at Hakaya’ (Hakaya Greenhouse) to develop children’s literature in Arabic and he is still leading it today. He worked for several years as a journalist, he is the founding editor of Qadita Website for Art and Culture. He worked as a lecturer of dramatic writing in the theatre Department in Haifa University, and a lecturer for Palestinian and Arab theatre in Sapir college. In 2023 he will start teaching a creative writing course in the Department of Arabic Language & Literature in Haifa University.