Call for proposals: Divinations: the art of remembering the future

“I met her at one of the ‘revolution’ offices, and since I had nothing to do, I thought to have a relationship with her...”[1] is how the second part of Rasmi Abu Ali’s short story "Qit Maqsous al-Sharibain Ismahu Rayyes" (A Cat with Clipped Whiskers called Rayyes) begins. The story, which appeared in Al-Adab magazine in 1977, depicts a brief relationship between a Palestinian (whose official profession is "resistance fighter," as revealed in his identification papers at a checkpoint), a Swiss journalist and a street cat. The relationship evolves in Beirut in the 1970s during the peak of the Palestinian "revolution," where the latter and its terminology, and all the Palestinian "work tools," appear as a dull background.[2]

For Abu Ali, writing the story was, in part, an attempt to correct the "revolution" in politics, thought and culture by turning attention to the margins of that revolution, which the revolutionaries disavowed and refused to recognise. The very publication of the story in Al-Adab, a Lebanese magazine, indicates that there were works that could not be welcomed into the designated Palestinian revolutionary culture of that period.

As Abu Ali’s legacy remains haunting in the present, we are compelled to reread his texts and cultural acts while asking: How can we, under such circumstances and with such realisations, imagine a future which would resist becoming a victim to a conservative dream of liberation that is being nurtured in the present?

It is apparent today that Palestine as a liberation idea, shaped by decades of struggle, resistance and artistic creation by Palestinians, and non-Palestinians as well, has been a subject of continuous dismantlement. Therefore, there is a necessity for a responsible reshaping and reconstructing of the definitions of Palestine and the Palestinians in their struggles and revolutions anew – as a position for the objection to oppression and coercion, and as a basis for imagining a new form of togetherness that exceeds any imposed national, ethnic or geographical boundaries and subsequently pave the way for imagining human emancipation per se.

In launching the project Divinations: the art of remembering the future, the A.M. Qattan Foundation seeks to address these questions, along with other relevant ones. Accordingly, we call on artists, intellectuals, academics, curators, art historians and critics, especially those who have participated in past editions of the Young Artist of the Year Award (YAYA), to share their visions of a future that effectively subvert the present conditions of human deprivation to which many are being subjected worldwide within current local, regional and global political and social leanings.

Unlike the previous 10 editions of YAYA, this one will be devoted to imagining the future, with all its possibilities, risks and opportunities, through instigating a series of modules. Modules are a process of learning and research that can include, but not be limited to, a series of workshops, interventions, talks, walks, courses, seminars, etc, and involving a group of participants. The outcomes will be showcased, thoroughly discussed and synthesised, in order to contemplate the future and to reimagine the YAYA as a fresh intervention that can sustain its significance within the visual art scene in Palestine and beyond for years to come.

Thus, the project invites proposals for an imagining of the future of Palestine, and the possibilities and potentials the Palestinian experience can offer to all humans, while relying on the predictions of new cultural values and aesthetics. We seek, additionally, to question the role of culture in forming the future, based on current cultural trends of the deprivations of the political conditions and the normalisation of violent practices of control and conservatism. The project especially welcomes proposals that are investigative in nature and contain explicating questions on the axiological future of culture and the visual arts, and the direction and method of cultural work, including working collaboratively and towards a desired togetherness. Proposals are also welcome from applicants who intend to work in art spaces and in collaboration with initiatives across Palestine, or in direct conversations with non-artists.

For more information and the application form, please click here.

[1] Rasmi Abu Ali, “Qit Maqsous al-Sharibain Ismahu Rayyes”, Beirut: Al-Adab Magazine, vol. 5-6, May 1977. [Online 9 January 2020]: https://archive.alsharekh.org/Articles/255/20303/460752

[2] Abdo Wazen, “Rasmi Abu Ali, a creator in the heart of the Palestinian literature, and on its margins”, Beirut: Independent Arabia, 9 Jan, 2020. [Online 24 March 2020].