Qalandiya International IV

Under the theme of Solidarity, the fourth edition of Qalandiya International kicks off on October 3, 2018. Qi program of events takes place in several locations including Jerusalem, Gaza, Ramallah, Birzeit in addition to several Palestinian villages with the participation of dozens of Palestinian and international artists. A program of collateral events will take place in cities around the world including New York, San Francisco, Olympia (Washington), Cape Town, Doha, Dusseldorf and Swansea under the same theme.

A one-month programme of discursive engagement, exhibitions, performances, talks, film screenings, workshops and tours will probe the notion “solidarity” through different lenses. The notion will be explored by opening up for global experiences, yet forging local experimentations and contemporary interpretations.

The opening of Qalandiya International 2018 will take place in Jerusalem; The Palestinian Art Court – Al Hoash’s exhibition “Interlude” represents Jerusalem’s daily reality aiming to break the barrier with the place, with the participation of a group of artists from Palestine, the diaspora and the world. Al Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art will launch Jerusalem Show iX: Jerusalem Actual and Possible which seeks to mine the collections, archives, and institutions existing around the  city with the goal of refusing the “given present” and questioning Jerusalem’s where, how and when.

In Gaza, Eltiqa and Shababeek galleries will present Towards Hope: an exhibition focusing themes of solidarity in the Gaza context. The A. M. Qattan Foundation in cooperation with Birzeit University Museum will present Lydda-A Garden Disremembered inviting artists to examine the controversies dealing with the British colonial planning paradigm that transformed the city of Lydda to an ethnically cleansed and segregated city aiming at disempowering and suppressing Palestinian communities in favour of Jewish immigrants. The Palestinian Museum is organising a book launch and a public tour of their “Labour of Love” exhibition and publication which explore Palestinian embroidery through the lenses of gender, labour, symbol, capital and class, tracing its shift from a personal practice to a symbol of national heritage, and the implications of its commodification today.

Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center’s exhibition Debt will examine how debt and its market systems, have shifted our understanding and the role of solidarity in art and cultural practices. The project hopes to explore other thoughts and forms of solidarity, both within the current cultural economy, and those that exist despite of it by looking at existing artist practices and rethinking ways of working together.

Through a series of talks, walks and interventions in the public space titled “(ONE)H: Clustering, Reciprocity and Interdependency,” Riwaq will address the built environment as a medium of togetherness and a medium to think the notions of autonomy and the notions of society at large.

Ramallah Municipality will culminate their residency program “Mammarat (Paths)” with the exhibition The Lasting Effect that invites the artists to probe “The Social Question” by means of discursive engagement with the term “Solidarity”—pertaining to opening up for global experiences, yet forging local experimentations and contemporary definitions.

The first week of Qi will include a tour to Majdal Shams, in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. Participants will stop at several stations which have solidarity significance such as Fateh Al Mudares Art Centre, the Shouting Valley, Tal El-Fakhaar and the area overlooking Syrian villages where the ruins of the largest city in Golan exist.

Qalandiya International was founded in 2012 as a joint contemporary art event that takes place every two years across Palestinian cities and villages that aims to place Palestine on the world’s cultural map and open up channels for dialogue and exchange, both locally and internationally. As a partnership between different art and cultural institutions, Qi works collectively to join forces to unify a fragmented geography.

For more information about Qalandiya International, the main  program and the collateral events program email info [​at​] qalandiyainternational.org