The Palestinian Museum Announces its Programme for 2017 and 2018

Birzeit, Palestine - 16 Jan 2017 - The Palestinian Museum has announced its rich and diverse programme for 2017 and 2018. The programme includes five major exhibitions, as well as the launch of its online platform, and the start of its digital archive, and numerous educational programmes, research projects and conferences.

Dr. Mahmoud Hawari, the Museum’s Director, explained that the Museum’s programme has been developed around a number of key principles, including the critical exploration of important milestones in Palestinian history, culture and society.  

The inaugural exhibition in the Museum will open in September 2017 until Mid-December. It will be curated by Reem Fadda, who was the Artistic Director of the 2016 Marrakech Biennial and previously held the post of Associate Curator, Middle Eastern Art for the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Project from 2010. The exhibition will present a critical reading of the representations of Jerusalem as a global city especially in the past fifty years since its occupation in 1967. The exhibition will be multidisciplinary and extensive, presenting multiple commissions and programmes with artists, institutions and collectives within the museum and satellite locations, particularly in Jerusalem.

In parallel, the second exhibition will be launched in November 2017 on the centennial of the Balfour Declaration and aims to shed light on the various aspects of the Palestinians’ popular resistance against this landmark declaration and its impact on their life and destiny.

In January 2018, the Museum will then host a new version of its first satellite exhibition At the Seams: A Political History of Palestinian Embroidery, which opened in Beirut in May 2016 at Dar el-Nimer for Arts and Culture, and was the first of the Museum’s exhibitions to be held outside Palestine. Curated by Rachel Dedman, the new iteration will present fresh collections of Palestinian dresses and artefacts alongside research that casts a critical look at the role of embroidery in shaping contemporary Palestinian culture.

As for the second half of 2018, the Museum will hold two exhibitions: Gaza: Gateway to Palestine, and Intimate Topographies: Be-longing, Nearness and Distance.  

The Palestinian Museum will be featured in May in an exhibition, to be held in Geneva, about the architectural design of ten selected new museums from around the world.

In April 2017, the Museum will also launch its online platform Palestinian Journeys – An Interactive Timeline, in partnership with the Institute for Palestine Studies and Visualising Impact. The first phase of this ambitious project, which will span the history of Palestine from prehistory till today, will focus on the modern era (1850-2010). The Palestinian Museum will also begin work in Spring 2017 on its digital archive, which will collect, preserve, digitize and provide free access to Palestinian documents, photographs and films deemed at risk.

During 2017-2018, the Museum will run an extensive educational programme alongside its exhibitions. It will also develop a number of smaller initiatives to encourage young Palestinian artists and curators and provide them with the space to display their work.