Ramallah – (A.M. Qattan Foundation – April 5, 2025):
The A.M. Qattan Foundation opened its group show I shall carve the sun’s words on April 5, 2025, at its headquarters in Ramallah. Through archival works and contemporary explorations, the exhibition delves into the intertwined relationships between history and time under the tyranny of occupation, its recurring cycles, and the fragmented experiences of Palestinians—both within occupied Palestine and across the diaspora.
In her welcoming remarks, exhibition curator Reem Shadid reflected on its journey, which began as a research idea and public call initiated by Yazid Anani, former Director of the Public Programme. Titled The Community Question, the initiative invited researchers to draw on civil society archives to reflect on the process of liberation in Palestine.
Shadid said, “This initiative provided an important foundation for beginning to reflect on fundamental questions that later became central themes in the exhibition and its public programme. One of the questions that preoccupied us was how to engage with the archive in Palestine in a clear and direct manner—moving away from an abstract perspective that treats it merely as historical recollection. Especially in this difficult moment, we are witnessing scenes from the archive reoccurring in more violent and intensified forms, amplified by the brutality and savagery of the occupation.”
She added, “This also raises the question of what ‘Free Palestine’ means to us, given our varied experiences as Palestinians—living within Palestine, across its different geographies, and in the diaspora.”
Fidaa Touma, Foundation Director General, said, “From the Nakba of 1948 to the ongoing genocide, culture in Palestine has remained an act of resistance—not a luxury. At a moment when we are being silenced and erased, this exhibition returns us to a fundamental question: What kind of society do we want to be? And what kind of future do we create for ourselves, through memory and collective action?”
The exhibition and its public program, shaped during the genocide on Palestine (October 2023–present), pose a fundamental question whose meaning continues to evolve amid the ongoing aggression and massacre that we witness unfolding before our eyes in Gaza and the West Bank: "How do we build a future that refuses to compromise on the end of the occupation? And how can reading become an act of reclaiming and controlling time?"
In light of the widespread bloodshed in the world today and its disregard for an undeniable genocide and concealment behind grand metaphors, a number of the exhibition’s artists delve into the archives of Palestinian civil society organizations and cultural life, both as a mirror and a witness to reality. These include the archives of the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, which document experiences of administrative detention, hunger strikes, and detention following martyrdom in captivity, with a particular focus on the case of the martyred prisoner Khader Adnan. They include the reports of Defence for Children International, which further illuminate the visual experiences of Palestinian children amid the ongoing war against them, offering a critical interrogation of the effectiveness of international laws supposedly designed to protect them. Also included are the projects of Riwaq – the Centre for Architectural Conservation, which contributes through its work to preserve Palestinian collective memory by documenting and reviving architectural heritage sites across the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This is accompanied by research into the archives of UNRWA in Gaza and its eight refugee camps spanning 1950 to 2024, as well as the experiences of the Theatre of the Oppressed and The Platform at Ashtar Theatre. Artists have also engaged with archives from Palestinian newspapers such as Al-Ayyam and Al-Ittihad to explore and reinterpret the political, social, and economic transformations experienced by Palestinian society.
Other artists turn to the human body as a living archive, drawing on personal experiences and narratives to address broader questions of identity, justice, and societal resilience by highlighting moments where the personal intersects with the collective. They examine everyday life and its “ordinary” practices as testimonies to reality and as forces shaping collective consciousness. Their work traces the complexities of suffering and memory, shifting between past and future within a reality where occupation, colonial structures, and tools of control are not merely the backdrop, but the focal point of the image.
At the same time, the exhibition delves into many layered questions about architecture and space as a living archive; about the concept of space from both material and social perspectives; the realities of what appears and disappears within it and the repercussions of these shifts; the spatial dimensions of occupation; and aesthetic phenomena, the multifaceted processes, historical foundations, and the contradictions that shape them. What is daily life like in a place struggling for the most basic human rights? How is this space portrayed—or attempted to be understood—through which lens, and for what purpose? By questioning collective memory and its formation, and the significance of collective movement and its impact on building and sustaining society, the exhibition also probes the journey between past, present, and future, reflecting on and interrogating the interconnections across time.
The exhibition does not stop at raising these questions but also interrogates the meaning of the production of art at this dark moment in the history of the Palestinian cause. It is not satisfied with merely bearing witness to the persistence of the colonial machinery of killing and destruction: rather, it strives to create a space that exposes and amplifies acts that resist the cruelty seeking to strip people of their humanity. It seeks to position art as a means of resistance, remembrance, and hope—a platform for raising voices, drawing attention and reclaiming art’s role as an integral part of the cultural struggle, inseparable from the political struggle for freedom. In doing so, it opens a broader horizon for the future, within collective spaces of reflection and participation.
Exhibition Curators: Reem Shadid and Bakria Saeb
Assistant Curator: Yasmin Huleileh
Participating Artists:
Rana Batrawi, Shareef Sarhan, Emily Jacir, Salim Abu Jabal, Shaimaa Esmat, Mahmoud Al-Shaer, Rehaf Al-Batniji, Ahed Izhiman, Monther Jawabreh, Samar Ozrali, Rebal Derieh, Izz Al-Jabari, Ruba AlFarawna, Hanna Qubty, Ahmed Al-Aqra, Basma Al-Sharif, Rula Halawani, Noor Abed, Ghassan Naddaf, and Ola Zaitoun