If the Middle East is one of the most mediatised regions of the world, then “Israel” and “Palestine” continue to evoke opinionated, emotional, critical, and disputed reactions. Being one of the most long-standing “conflicts” in the region, and in modern history, more often than not equations are being constructed for the sake of argument, media shorthand, or ideological ease. This we will refrain from doing. Acknowledging the political, historical and territorial disparities at hand, “Becoming Nation” aims to dig deep and hard at the discourses and forces at play…but perhaps not as you know it:
Celebrate the first Palestinian on the moon with artist Larissa Sansour. Fly high and rattle conceptions on arts and politics, misconceptions of the Middle East, artistic agency and collaborative processes with superheroes Nonel and Vovel. Learn of the urgency to examine the mental and spatial dynamics of occupation through the “Liminal Spaces” project. Throw “Raging Balls” and scratch in Varanasi with artist Oreet Ashery. Find out why a Jew is an Arab born in Poland, and join Professor Joseph Massad from Colombia University (NY) for a lecture that considers Semitism (for Jews, Arabs, Muslims), Orientalism, anti-Semitism and the production of Arabs and Jews as Semites in the context of Palestine/Israel.
With the participation of Larissa Sansour, Galit Eilat, Oreet Ashery, Reem Fadda, Rachel Leah Jones and Joseph Massad
Curated and hosted by Nat Muller