Press Release: Astral Desire Photo Exhibition by Katie Ramadan

[Photo by Katie Ramadan] [Photo by Katie Ramadan]

Press Release: Astral Desire Photo Exhibition by Katie Ramadan

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[The following press released was issued on 24 October 2014]

‘Astral Desire’ is a photo exhibition by Katie Ramadan that speaks of human relationships in Palestine, desire and spirituality. ‘Astral Desire’ opens in Haifa, at the Abatjour Café (49 Hillel St.) on 1 November 2014, launching a week of cultural activities to celebrate Abatjour’s one year anniversary. The exhibition will thereafter show in Nazareth and Jerusalem. 


The photo exhibition tells the story of unrequited love. Girl loves boy, boy doesn`t love girl back. Girl, in fact desires boy, though boy desires something else. 


Astral Desire utilizes the concept of the astral, where a body is able to leave life’s physical plane and travel long distances along the astral plane, able to experience the physical world, though invisible to people. In the series, the girl leaves her body and astral travels from her home to his. The exhibition harnesses the concept of the astral to tell of a rather base human emotion, desire.


The photo series attempts to engage the audience on the affective economy of desire – how does desire circulate, how does it make individuals, subject and object of desire? To what degree is it ‘authentic’ and/or culturally conditioned? Can we imagine desire to be a search for recognition, an affirmation of one’s ego? 


The series is composed of primarily black and white photos that communicate the astral journey, with the pair of coloured photos reflecting life on the physical plane. In terms of light exposure, the photos were all taken with natural light and without external aids, and have a surreal feel to them.

Between November and January 2015, the exhibition will show in two more locations, first in Nazareth and then in Jerusalem in the new year. The exhibition is curated by Walid Mawed, who was also the set designer, and the male model alongside Sally Azzam Cook.

In 2012, photographer Katie Ramadan hosted a successful exhibition at Sudfeh in Nazareth, entitled “In a Different Light”, also curated by Walid. It was covered in local and international media, as well as by MBC television. The work was a thirty photograph, black-and-white invitation to step out of the self and into other worlds. Katie takes on similar themes in this show, but with an intensity that is far more personal and vulnerable.

Like her previous exhibition, ‘Astral Desire’ invites us to self-reflect. In this exhibition, we are invited to interrogate between the ideal we think we desire and the reality we are forced to confront when we are within touching distance of that ideal. In a sense, the exhibition serves as a symbolic mirror. Just as light enables images to form in the mirror, so the awareness the exhibition provokes allows us to form more honest and clear ideas about ourselves. In facing one’s truth or the other`s truth or the truth about your relationship with another, you take your first steps towards liberation. In relationships, the other is only a mirror reflecting both your own beauty and ugliness. The mirror represents the clarity of your inner voice and a tool to practice self-love.

Katie clarifies that this story isn’t just metaphoric; rather, the audience is also “both the lover and the beloved of ‘Astral Desire’… you are the source of desire and desire’s object. This story is both your story and mine”. 

Confirm Your Attendance: https://www.facebook.com/events/695813660510360/

Follow Us:

Support Us:https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/astral-desire/x/8668306

For more details, contact curator Walid Mawed, 054 259 6373, walidesignart [at] gmail.com

For English related inquiries, contact Nasser Rego at nasservictorrego [at] gmail.com


 


(شهوة ضوئيّة) هو معرض صور فوتوغرافيّة للمصوّرة كيتي رمضان يتناول الرغبة والروحانية. سيتمّ افتتاح (شهوة ضوئيّة) في حيفا، في كافيه أبجور (49 ش هليل) في 1 تشرين الثاني 2014. وسيتمّ نقل المعرض بعد ذلك إلى الناصرة والقدس.

المعرض يحكي بالصور قصة حبّ من طرف واحد. صبيّة تحبّ شابّاً، لكنّ الشاب لا يبادلها الشعور. الصبيّة في الواقع تشتهي الشاب، والشاب يشتهي أشياء أخرى.

(شهوة ضوئيّة) يستعرض مفهوم الآسترال – البرزخ في الثقافة العربيّة، والذي يدّعي وجود جسم ضوئي قادر على مغادرة الجسد والسفر خارجه على بعد مسافات طويلة في تخوم ضوئيّة، وقادر على اختبار العالم المادي بالتحليق فيه وهو غير مرئيّ للناس. في سلسلة الصور، تترك الفتاة جسدها وتحلّق بجسمها الضوئي لتكون بقرب الشابّ الذي يرفض ملاقاتها. المعرض يسخّر مفهوم الآسترال ليروي قصّة عن الرغبة، وهي من أساسيّات وجودنا الشعوري.

تسعى سلسلة الصور لإشراك الجمهور في تفكيك لغز الرغبة – ماذا يحرّكها، كيف تجعلنا ضحيّة هاجسها أو هدفاً وموضوعاً لها، وما هو مدى أصالتها أو تكيّفها ثقافيّاً، كم من الرغبة هو بحث عن اعتراف وتأكيد بوجود الأنا؟

تتكوّن سلسلة الصور في الأساس من الأبيض والأسود وهذه النوعيّة تمثّل الرحلة الضوئيّة التي تقوم بها الصبيّة، مع زوج من الصور الملوّنة التي تمثّل الحياة بواقعها الجسدي. أمّا بخصوص الإضاءة، فتمّ التقاط جميع الصور في الضوء الطبيعي وبدون مساعدات لخارجية، وإنّما تركيبة المشهد الفوتوغرافي فتميل إلى  السرياليّة.

بين نوفمبر ويناير عام 2015 سينتقل المعرض للناصرة والقدس. أمّا قيّم المعرض ومصمّم المشهد فهو وليد موعد والذي يشارك كعارض في سلسلة الصور، إلى جانب العارضة سالي عزام كوك.

 

في عام 2012، أقامت المصورة كيتي رمضان معرضاً ناجحاً في غاليري (صدفة) في الناصرة، بعنوان (ضوء آخر)، مع قيّم المعرض وليد موعد. تمّت تغطيته في وسائل الإعلام المحلية والدولية منها شاشة MBC شمل المعرض السابق ثلاثين صورة، وكان عبارة عن دعوة بالأسود والأبيض للخروج من الذات والوصول إلى عوالم أخرى. كيتي تتناول مواضيع مماثلة في هذا المعرض، ولكن بأكثر قوّة وأكثر هشاشة في آن واحد.

 

كمعرضها السابق، يدعونا (شهوة ضوئيّة) للتأمّل الذاتي. في هذا المعرض، نحن مدعوون للمقارنة بين المثالية التي نشتهيها في فكرنا والواقع الذي نحن مضطرون لمواجهته عندما نكون على مسافة قريبة منه. لهذا سيشمل المعرض وجود مرآه. فكما تمكّن المرآة الضوء من تشكيل الصور، هكذا  يسمح الوعي بتشكيل أفكار أكثر صدقاً وأوضح عن أنفسنا. في المواجهة مع حقيقة الذات أو الحقيقة الآخر أو حقيقة علاقتك مع الآخر، أنت تخطو خطوتك الأولى نحو التحرّر. في العلاقات، الآخر ليس إلا مرآة تعكس كل من جمالك وقبحك. تمثّل المرآة وضوح صوتك الداخلي وهي أيضاً أداة لممارسة حب الذات.

 

توضّح كيتي "هذه القصة ليست مجرد قصّة مجازية، فجمهور المعرض هو بطل القصّة، العاشق والمعشوق... (شهوة ضوئيّة) هي قصّة جميعنا".

 

لتأكيد حضوركم:

https://www.facebook.com/events/695813660510360/

 

لمتابعتنا على الإنترنت:

https://www.facebook.com/astraldesireexhibition

http://astraldesire.tumblr.com/

 

للدعم عن طريق التبرّع قبل انطلاقتنا في 1 تشرين الثاني:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/astral-desire/x/8668306

 

لمزيد من المعلومات، يرجى الاتصال بقيّم المعرض وليد موعد على

054 259 6373, walidesignart [at] gmail.com

للاستفسارات باللغة الإنكليزية، الاتّصال بناصر ريغو

nasservictorrego [at] gmail.com

  

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Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 


[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412