Saturday, May 20, 19:00-22:00
The symposium seeks to expand the discourse on the Palestinian Qatamon by discussion actions taken in the present and in an imagined and possible future. The evening will feature artists and scholars involved in activism, historical research, city planning, literature and poetry, whose work is directed at recognizing the injustice and rewriting urban, cultural and symbolical space as a condition for redress and for the creation of a shared space, in Jerusalem and beyond.
19:00 Opening statement by Debby Farber, Zochrot
19:15-20:30 Jerusalem, We Are Here: Virtual space as a common archive and re-presentative action: Dr. Dorit Naaman, scholar and artist, Queen’s University, Ontrario, Canada
Respondents:
• Rawan Basharat, Co-Director, Sadaqa-Reut: To hear about Ma’lul Masbati and take action.
• Shmuel Groag, architect and conservation consultant, Bezalel: The Arab city – the roaming archive: The test case of Yaffa’s Jerusalem Blvd.
• Gish Amit, historian and educator: Looting/return: Qatamon and the Palestinian libraries
Q&A
20:30-20:45 Coffee break
20:45-22:00 The poetry of Qatamon: Arabic’s right of return
In this bilingual, Hebrew-Arabic literature and poetry evening in Qatamon, we will ask whether poetry and literature can provide us with an alternative memory of the past, an alternative hope for the future, and whether Arabic-Hebrew bilingualism can really be our present tense.
Panelists: Sheikha Haliwa, Naama Gersy, Raji Bathish, Neta Weiner, Altayeb Ghanayem, Almog Behar
Moderator: Yoni Mendel