For its fifth edition, the 2017 /si:n/ festival for video art and performance will run for four days, from june 12th-15th. Events will take place in the central Palestinian cities of Jerusalem, Gaza, Bethlehem and Ramallah. A selection of video art installations, performances and film screenings by noted local and international artists will be exhibited in multiple venues and connected through organized tours of cityscapes in the four localities.
This edition is brought together through the efforts and generous contributions of A. M. Qattan Foundation, Goethe-Institut Ramallah, Les Instants Vidéo Numériques et Poétiques, Palestinian Art Court -al Hoash, Dar al-Kalima University College of Arts and Culture, Eltiqa Group, Shababek for Contemporary Art, Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre, Ramallah Municipality, RIWAQ and Birzeit University Museum.
This year’s programme encourages festival participants to experience artworks in an urban context and thereby also explore the city through video art and performance. Rich and diverse, the programme engages the public in a variety of events:
Ramallah
Curated by Yazid Anani, Lurking Green is a video work that explores the disruptive appearance in Palestine of Ring-Necked Parakeets. Illegally released into the country decades ago, they adapted quickly to their new environment and have bred in large numbers, competing aggressively with local Hoopoes and Woodpeckers for nesting sites. The hidden scene of the parakeets is brought into conversation with the current geopolitical situation in Palestine in this video work presented by the A. M. Qattan Foundation (AMQF.)
Presented by the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre and curated by Lara Khaldi and Reem Shilleh, Desires into Fossils: Disrupting Monuments (the video program) examines the theme of monuments in Palestine. Examining how monuments are experienced, shape collective consciousness and entice narratives, Desires into Fossils opens up into a broader exploration of notions of death, the politics of museumification and the congealing of identity.
GossipTV, a performance by artist Blake Shaw presented in collaboration with AMQF and Ramallah Municipality is an exploration through video art and visual poetics of the Palestinian struggle, treating central themes of return to the homeland and resistance to the Israeli occupation, including the politics of boycotting the occupation.
Birzeit:
All Power to the Poetic Imagination is a video installation curated by Marc Mercier and Naïk M'Sili. A collection of videos, the work explores our need for a poetic imagination in a world harried by ubiquitous visual imagery, in which pressing political realities are obscured and our very ability to sense and make sense is undone. The work is presented by Les Instants Vidéo Numériques et Poétiques and exhibited at the Birzeit University Museum.
Jerusalem:
The interactive performance Drift, created by game designer Sebastian Quack, is presented by the Goethe-Institut and the Palestinian Art Court (Al Hoash.) Wearing earphones, participants in Drift explore a city en ensemble without the help of maps or guides, their only collective compass a shared soundtrack. The work prods them to experience their surroundings in a playful and adventurous way, discovering paths and spaces otherwise overlooked and neglected. Drift will take place on June 12th and 13th in Jerusalem and on June 14th in Ramallah.
Gaza:
Curated by Shareef Sarhan and Raed Issa and jointly presented by Eltiqa Group and Shababeek for Contemporary Art, the exhibition Life in Gaza in 90 Seconds addresses the fraught contradictions of everyday life in the Gaza Strip. Comprising a collection of 90 second videos, the exhibition treats the gruelling living conditions of Palestinians in Gaza and their daily struggles to fashion liveable lives amidst their predicament.
Bethlehem:
Dar al-Kalima University College of Arts and Culture in Bethlehem presents By Chance, a diverse collection of short films produced by its students. Through film and multimedia a wide variety of works offer visual and electronic meditations provoked by the concept of chance.
Film program in Ramallah, Jerusalem and Gaza:
Recollection (2015) by Kamal Aljafari, and Daga’a (2015) by Shadi Habiballah.
RIWAQ will organize screenings of a selection of the program films in the villages in which the organization has worked.
About
The /si:n/ festival for video art and performance was established in 2009 by a group of culture and art institutions. The festival aims to create spaces for the exhibition of and research into video art and performance, and to encourage new forms of seeing and interaction. Building on cooperation among its partner institutions, it is intended to introduce new formulas of collective cultural and artistic work. Seeking to challenge both geographical and political divisions, it strives to extend the scope of its work and public outreach across all of Palestine.