CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: The Body Politic - Changing Representations of Palestinian Women

Open call for artists and filmmakers

The Ethnographic and Art Museum at Birzeit University announces a call for participation in a future exhibition planned for September 2011.

The exhibition is a critical exploration of the transformations in representations of women in Palestinian visual arts within a changing political context since the 70s.

Artists are encouraged to create a contemporary work reflecting on and re-imagining the themes and images of the foundational / iconic period.

Film makers are encouraged to submit a concept brief on producing a film that analyses and reflects on issues of change in the representation of women in Palestinian art.

Application deadline extended until:
15 May 2011

For further information please contact :
The Ethnographic and Art Museum:
Hafez Omar
bzumuseum@birzeit.edu
Phone: 02 2982976

Concept Brief:

The Body Politic - Changing Representations of Palestinian Women

The exhibition is a critical exploration of the transformations in representations of women in Palestinian visual arts within a changing political context. The exhibit will juxtapose the post-1967 iconic or foundational works produced by Palestinian artists where politics in its broadest sense – and meanings of nation, resistance and Palestine itself – were expressed through the female figure in an interplay with notions of women, femininity, motherhood and body with, and against more contemporary representations, using works from as early as the late 1980s and continuing with vigor today.

While the foundational works were mostly by male artists – whose representation of the female figure as body politic arguably exhausted itself by the beginning of the Oslo period -- there were several important female artists producing art in a somewhat different, more intimate key. On another level, the 1980s debuts a new dynamics in Palestinian art and a surge of Palestinian women producing art through the 1990s to the present, across different geographies and through various media, employing the female body as a reflection, or a critique, of feminist discourse, environmental themes or other specific contemporary political issues.

The Exhibition

Through visual juxtapositions and text, questions shall be raised for the viewer on the political readings behind the use of the Palestinian female figure and body. This exhibition will reflect the dynamic interplay between the foundational / iconic period of representations of women, and the flowering of contemporary modes of representation .

The exhibition shall include the following components:

1. Existing Works: Selection of existing works, particularly from the last two decades, that explore, challenge and re-configure representations of Palestinian women.

2. Commissioned works: Artists will be invited to submit a concept brief, competing to create a contemporary work reflecting on and re-imagining the themes and images of the foundational / iconic period. Upon study of the proposed concepts, four artists will be commissioned to participate in the exhibition , with whom the curators will create a working dialogue for the elaboration of the work. See the call above.

3. Video - an analytical art film: Film makers will be invited to submit a concept brief on producing a film that analyses and reflects on issues of change in the representation of women in Palestinian art.

Curators: Vera Tamari and Inass Yassin

This exhibition is sponsored by:
The Women's Studies Institute – Birzeit University