A Culture Comes Home, by Larissa Shulman
Culture requires its own sanctuary, and that sanctuary is the museum. The museum speaks to and for its people, and this sacred space enables a people to make sense of its heritage.
No less is true for the Umm al-Fahem
gallery which, in some twenty years, has evolved into a place where Palestinian
culture can build and progress, turn inward and outward, look forwards and
backwards. “We are pushing for official museum status” says gallery founder and
director Said Abu Shakra, whose charisma and candor bring a radiant energy to
the space. Running with his vision, Said and his team of donors, curators,
researchers, and gallery staff have created a singular hub of contemporary
Palestinian-Israeli culture.
“There was no place for Palestinian
artists [before the gallery]” says Said, who comes from a family of artists and
is one himself. The idea for the gallery emerged after the death of Said’s
cousin Asim Abu Shakra, a prodigious artist who succumbed to Leukemia before
his thirtieth birthday. Coming away from a commemorative retrospective of his
late cousin’s work held at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Said was confounded that
Palestinians lacked their own artistic ecosystem. He did not want subsequent
Palestinian artists to be confined by Jewish-Israeli curators and institutions
alone. Starting from scratch, Said set
out to make a home for Palestinian art. Through the evolution of the gallery,
to which he devoted tireless and unremunerative sweat, blood, and tears, Said
has put Palestinian culture back into the hands of its people.
I had the pleasure of spending the day
at the gallery during the installation of “Manifestations of Letter.” This
exhibition explores the ways in which written and lingual tradition has
buttressed Palestinian-Israeli identity. “Manifestations of Letter”
demonstrates this through a diverse body of work which portrays Arabic as a
means to bond a people to its past.
Said’s younger brother, Farid Abu
Shakra, is showing a few of his works in “Manifestations of Letter” and
happened to drop by during my time at the gallery. He spoke with me about the
“new, Palestinian every man” depicted in his work, “Abdullah: The Poem, the
Flesh.” The piece depicts the confused and disorientated state of the
archetypical contemporary Palestinian young man, replete with a jarring yet
appropriate message in English: “No Signal.”
I strongly encourage anyone to visit
the gallery while “Manifestations of Letter” is up (through 24/5/14, curated by Dr. Maliha Maslamani.) The works run the
gamut of traditional, emotional, political, and unnerving; the mark of a
well-curated show that seeks to delve, question, enlighten, and move, like the
gallery itself.
Perhaps the gallery’s greatest treasure
is its extensive photography and footage archive. What began in 2008 as an
idea for an exhibition expanded into a project which now accounts for
hundreds of testimonials from elders of Umm al-Fahem, Wadi ‘Ara, and Lajjunn
(now Kibbutz Megiddo.) The archive is
part of an ongoing permanent exhibition which allows people to learn about
these communities. Currently on view on the gallery’s first floor is a subset
of photographs by Jewish-Israeli photographer Shai Aloni documenting the eldersof the neighboring Wadi ‘Ara.
Mr. Aloni is one of many Jewish-Israeli
artists involved with the Umm al-Fahem Gallery. Said himself says that “we
would be no where without Jewish-Israeli help.” The El-Saber Association, a
cultural benefactor which receives funding from the Israeli Ministry of
Education, is a major source of funding for the gallery. The museum exhibits
works of Jewish-Israeli artists, and involves Jewish curators in the making of
its exhibitions. Pottery workshops for the women of the Umm al-Fahem region
are run by Israeli artist Rina Peleg. Collaboration has been a critical
component in the making of the gallery from the get-go.
For Said, building the gallery is work
that is deeply personal and rooted in a desire to link one generation to the
next. “This is for my mother,” says Said of the gallery, “and it is for my
children.” He fears that his offspring are uninterested in the past and won’t
understand their cultural legacy after those who can remember it are gone. “I
carry my family on my back” he says, “this museum is my gift to the next
generation.”
It seems that the gallery disseminates
two narratives which run in tandem. One narrative is of resistance and
regaining; it speaks of a refusal to forget history. The other narrative makes
peace with the present, carving out the space for a Palestinian identity that
is inextricably Israeli.
The institution itself is a catalyst for
rebranding Umm al-Fahem. The gallery has changed the nature of the city, which
was once considered a locus non grata in Israel because of its radical
political bent.
This article is written by one of Diwaniyya's interns, Larissa Shulman. Larissa is a Masters Candidate in the Middle Eastern Studies program at Tel Aviv University. Her research interests include Islamic identity in the context of the West and Jews of Arab lands. She also writes fiction and non-fiction essays.
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