Walkthrough: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Art Exhibit In Hostage: The Bachar tapes, a video presentation included in the Walid Raad exhibit, a character named Souheil Bachar provides testimony about his time in captivity during the Lebanese Civil War. In the midst of harrowing descriptions of his experiences, he comments, Yes, it is horrible what happened to us, but you must remember it is a story, so it is familiar to you. This encapsulates a major theme in Raad s work: the stories that we tell, create, and remember help to define our lives and unite us as human beings. It is this theme that serves as the inspiration for our final project of the year. For this project, you will be given a decade, or perhaps a span of 20 years, of history within the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. Your goal is to create a narrative for some event or group of events in those years, and depict that narrative in an artistic way. You may choose any media for your presentation, however that choice must be grounded in a clear rationale. You may also choose a location in the school a hallway, staircase, corner, room that serves to provide the piece with more meaning and depth. We will also be creating an audio tour to guide visitors through our exhibit, and visitors will receive a map with a suggested route. You will create your piece, write an artist statement that will be placed alongside the piece, write and record your portion of the audio tour, which can be primarily made up of the artist statement, but is also an opportunity to add a bit of theater (or something else) to your piece, and contribute to the map of the exhibit. Please look over the attached rubric for more specifics about what to include. If you are scratching your head and saying, Sarah, what the hell are you talking about? let me illuminate the possibilities. Let s say you received the most current time period (2000-2016). You read all about the events that took place during the time period the mediasanctioned, government-sanctioned official narrative. You read newspaper articles, magazine articles, look at photos, find short stories even. You come across a particular article that inspires you. It is about a new museum opening in the West Bank that is set to open, but there is only one problem there are no exhibits yet. They have some items in storage, like broken keys and photographs of homes that were left by Palestinians during al-nakba. But, at the opening of the museum, the building will be empty. You decide that the emptiness of this building is representative of so much of the Palestinian Arab story, so you create a fictional story about a group of people going into this empty building and how it affects each of them. Perhaps you also use this opportunity to look at organizations that work for peace between Palestinian and Israelis as well. You end up deciding that a series of drawings and photographs of the characters will help illustrate your narrative the best, and you decide to find a particularly empty feeling space in the building to add to the narrative. Raad once said, The story one tells oneself and that captures one s attention and belief may have nothing to do with what happened in the past, but that s the story that seems to matter in the present and for the future. I look forward to the stories you will tell!
Decade Options Two people will be given each time period below. You can decide to work together or work separately. There are plenty of events and ways to interpret the events! Ancient history: All the history we covered in the first class biblical and early origins of Jews and Arabs living in Palestine. 1858-1917: Ottoman government passing land laws, Suez Canal opens, Jewish immigration to Palestine begins, Theodore Hertzl publishes Der Judenstaat and founds World Zionist Organization, British begin to be involved, Sykes-Picot agreement, Balfour Declaration 1918-1937: US involvement (14 points by Woodrow Wilson), WWI ends and Allies approve British role in region and ratified by League of Nations, British 1930 White Paper, Peel Commission 1938-1947: World War II, Holocaust, President Truman calling for 100,000 Jewish refugees to be sent to Palestine, Britain announces withdrawal from Palestine, another White Paper, Biltmore conference calling for Jewish state over all of Palestine, Jewish militant group Irgun blows up British headquarters in Jerusalem, UN Resolution 181, civil war breaks out 1948-1967: State of Israel Independence with extended borders, al-nakba, Egypt occupies Gaza Strip and Transjordan annexes East Jerusalem and West Bank, Israeli Knesset established, Nasser nationalizes Suez Canal and Britain/France invade, PLO created, Six-Day War new territory for Israel, UN Resolution 242, Khartoum meeting 1967-1987: Yasir Arafat becomes head of PLO, PLO ousted from Jordan and re-establishes in Lebanon, Lebanese Civil War, surprise attack by Egypt and Syria and US gets involved, further Jewish settlements, Begin elected Prime Minister of Israel, Sadat visits Israel, Camp David Accords, Israel invades Lebanon, Sabra and Shatila refugee camp massacre, Palestinians launch first intifada against Israeli occupation of West Bank and Gaza, Hamas founded 1987-2000: Jordan drops claim to West Bank, PLO seeks peace (renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel), Oslo Accords, Israel signs peace treaty with Jordan, Israel and PLO sign Oslo II agreement, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin assassinated, Wye Summit (Netanyahu and Arafat), further negotiations around Oslo agreements (Barak and Arafat) 2000-2016: Clinton hosts another Camp David summit (fails), Ariel Sharon visits Jerusalem sights, Palestinians launch second intifada, Al-Qaeda attacks on World Trade Center and Pentagon in US, Israel launches Operation Defensive Shield, Quartet Group issued Road Map for independent Palestinian state, Geneva Initiative seeks to find comprehensive agreement, International Court of Justice calls for end to wall put up by Israel during ODS, Arafat dies and Abbas takes his place as leader of Palestinian Authority, Sharon evacuates settlements in Gaza strip, Hamas wins Palestinian parliamentary elections, Netanyahu endorses establishment of Palestinian state, Arab Spring, UN declares Palestinian Authority non-member state status. (Current NY Times, other news sources, will be helpful)
Walkthough: Israeli-Palestinian Art Exhibit Artistic Expression and Research You gather and read through a variety of sources of information about your topic. You read historical accounts, primary sources, news articles, literature, view photographs and maps to inform your project. You submit a bibliography of sources and either a shared Google Doc of sources or copies of sources in a folder. You also include ideas and notes from the sources that demonstrate careful reading and understanding of these sources. The art piece, inspired by your time period and sources, reflects the historical findings from your source material. You create a narrative through which the audience can view not only the Official narrative but also your created one. The art piece you create is original, thoughtful, and engaging. The space you chose for your piece also reflects careful planning. You use materials and methods (audio, video, visuals, live demonstration, audience participation) that effectively illustrate your research and created narrative. Your artist statement for the piece is thoughtfully written, explains your narrative clearly, and details the materials used. It is formatted to look like a statement seen in a museum. You write and record your statement for the audio tour. Your audio tour explanation does more than just restate the artist statement. You work in a timely fashion and are agreeable to revision. Just Beginning Approaches Expectations Meets Expectations Exceeds Expectations JB----------------------------------------A---------------------------------M---------------------------------E
Sources! My classroom textbooks http://pov-tc.pbs.org/pov/pdf/promiese/promises-timeline.pdf https://www.world-affairs.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/israel-palestine-resource- Packet.pdf NY Times Topic: Israel Amos Oz short stories Walid Raad book/website at ICA http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/globalconnections/mideast/index.html http://www.bbc.com/news/world/middle_east https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/ http://www.npr.org/tags/125937239/israeli-palestinian-coverage MANY pimary source documents listed in chronological order: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/mideast.asp Foundation for Middle East Peace http://fmep.org/ Site with many videos about daily life for Palestinians: http://wn.com/palestine_daily The Story of the Jews a series done by PBS http://www.pbs.org/show/story-jews-program/ Maps and other resources regarding Two-State Solution: http://israelipalestinian.procon.org/ Jewish news organization http://www.haaretz.com/ The Jerusalem Post (Jewish News Organization) http://www.jpost.com/ Palestinian News Network http://english.pnn.ps/
Photos from recent conflicts in region http://www.usnews.com/news/photos/2014/07/25/photos-the-israel-palestinian-conflict Maps! http://www.vox.com/a/maps-explain-the-middle-east More photos: http://galleries.apps.chicagotribune.com/chi-20140708-israel-palestinian-conflict-pictures/ More Photos: https://news.vice.com/article/in-photos-one-year-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict More Photos: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/06/photos-from-both-sides-of-the-gazaconflict/?_r=0 More Photos: http://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/photo-gallery-palestinians-clash-with- Israeli-forces-in-West-Bank-385207 More photos: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/gaza-strip-40-powerful-photos-conflict-between-israel-hamas- 1462766 Videos/Photos about the conflict: http://nationalgeographic.org/media/israel-palestine-conflict-zone/ Resource for Jewish art and music in Palestine: http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/music-palestine-and-israel Palestinian Poster Project: http://www.palestineposterproject.org/ and http://liberationgraphics.com/ppp/introduction.html Academic article about music in Palestine: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1222&context=macintl Israeli-Palestinian Youth Chorus (check out song links): http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/06/jerusalem-youth-chorus-palestineisrael.html# Beats Not Bombs an academic article about hip-hop and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1035&context=notabene