Residency

Al Ma’mal has also played a role as a connection point in linking Palestinian artists with opportunities abroad – for workshops, residencies, exhibitions and other projects. As a result of acting as a conduit for information and contact, artists have been invited to participate in programmes in the UK, Switzerland, Finland, Poland and Italy. One of the most enduring of these connections has been with the town of Aarau, between Basel and Zurich, in northern Switzerland. Every two years since the late 1990s a Palestinian artist has been invited through Al Ma’mal as a guest artist for six months at the Gästeatelier Krone in Aarau, with the artist holding a public exhibition of their work at the conclusion of their residency.

But what has also been important is the space that has been given, when possible, to Palestinian artists, both at home and in the diaspora, to spend time and work in Jerusalem. This has not been an option for all, however, because of the enforced separation of Jerusalem from the occupied West Bank and Gaza that has been becoming increasingly entrenched through the military and civic control exercised over who is able to cross checkpoints and borders, with a complex system of surveillance, permits and residency controls designed to prevent Palestinians from the region and the diaspora, as well as citizens from other Arab nations, from being in Jerusalem at all.

Yet there are many who have been able to spend time in Palestine and Jerusalem as resident artists, filmmakers, photographers or curators, contributing to Al Ma’mal’s programme of exhibitions, workshops, film screenings and talks. The residencies have been a catalyst for new work and have generated new partnerships, creative encounters and active communication within Palestine and with an ‘outside’, in the face of a real risk of increasing fear, ignorance and isolationism.