In Solidarity with Palestine: On Empire, Continuity, and Interruption

In moments of immense pain, we strip bare our processes so layered with pleasantries, we abandon meticulous scrutiny and bureaucratic systems of precision. Destabilized - we turn to instinct, we improvise. 

“In Solidarity with Palestine”, an exhibition featured at Darat al Funun in Amman, Jordan, was conceived as a spontaneous reaction to the intensification of the perpetual brutality inflicted upon the Palestinian people. The exhibition honors the unremitting relevance of the archive of the Khalid Shoman Foundation. It is a departure from the hypocrisy of neoliberal art institutions that claim to advance decolonial ethics, welcome progressive politics, and practice solidarity with global liberation struggles. 

Structures scattered throughout the Foundation grounds in the historic hills of Jabal al-Weibdeh host various exhibition spaces. At the base of the property lie the ruins of a sixth-century Byzantine church and cave. Passing between exhibition spaces, the land becomes an extension of the works themselves. The ruins serve as a testimony to the fleeting yet enduring nature of empires.

Courtesy of The Khalid Shoman Collection

Mona Hatoum, Misbah, 2006.

منى حاطوم، مصباح، 2006.

At first glance, Mona Hatoum, Misbah (2006) (lantern in Arabic) is an elegant copper fixture marked by traditional cutout motifs, anchored by a long hanging chain and a motor that propels the work as it rotates on an axis. Its luminous, seductive presence draws the viewer in. As Misbah moves, it casts the images of its cutouts upon the dim, bare walls. It soon becomes evident that what was presumed to be decorative cutouts are figures of armed soldiers who dance around the room. Misbah collapses the boundaries between viewer and subject, delivering a destabilizing effect - it evokes a hysteria reminiscent of the heightened consciousness necessary to survive a military occupation. Driven to madness by the perversion of a traditional Ramadan lantern, many onlookers hastily abandon the exhibition. 

Courtesy of The Khalid Shoman Collection

Jumana Emil Abboud, Smuggling Lemons, 2006. Video, 20'33”.

جمانة إميل عّبود تهريب الليمون، 2006. فيديو، ''33'20.

In the next room, a video by Jumana Emil Abboud, Smuggling Lemons (2006), follows the artist as she transports lemons from Jerusalem to Ramallah via Qalandiya checkpoint. Abboud embarks upon her journey having already made a compromise. She wishes to bring the whole lemon tree to Ramallah, but she must settle for only its fruits. Collecting the lemons from a serene, lush, green garden, the artist arms herself, packing them in a waistband that undeniably resembles a grenade belt. With the shifting context of Abboud’s passage, the lemons assume different connotations. As she travels along the severe, gray demarcation wall on a public bus, Abboud carries the bright, fleshy lemons in her hands. When she reaches Qalandiya, she is forced to surrender her belt and the lemons for inspection in an X-ray machine. 

The monotonous journey speaks to the psychological impact of the systemic impositions inherent to the surveillance state. Smuggling Lemons is grounded in contrast, between the abundance of the garden and the grim conditions in Qalandiya/Ramallah, between the softness of the lemons in the artist’s hands and the harshness of the occupation wall. Through the utilization of her own body as a medium, Abboud brings to the forefront of our conscience the violating absurdity of the military apparatus, the arbitrary nature of borders and walls, and their imperialistic, repressionist aspirations. She is simultaneously in metamorphosis and suspended in time - forced to shift in accordance with the infrastructural apartheid(s) designed to cage her sovereignty.

Courtesy of The Khalid Shoman Collection

Suha Shoman, Bayyaritna, 2009. Video, 8’10”.

سهى شومان، بيارتنا، 2009. فيديو، "10'8.

Palestinian society is historically composed of predominantly Fallahi (peasant) people. In her video “Bayyaritna” (Our Orchard in Arabic), Suha Shoman narrates the violent, methodical destruction of her grandfather’s bayyara (orchard) in Beit Hanoun, Gaza. Her grandfather, a Palestinian from Jerusalem, started the bayyara in 1929, filling 616 dunums (151 acres) with Shamouti oranges (Jaffa oranges), Valencia oranges, Calamantina, sweet lemon, as well as palm trees. When the artist’s grandfather was exiled by the British mandates to Seychelles in 1937, her father looked over the land. In total, the Shoman family planted 26,892 trees in the family’s bayyara. After both Shoman’s father and grandfather passed, her mother, a Palestinian from Haifa, began to look after the land. 

My grandfather loved his land. / My father loved his land. / My mother is a Palestinian from Haifa. / She loved her land. / The sea of Gaza reminds her of the sea of Haifa. / We too continued planting oranges. / We produced honey from the orange blossoms. / We love our land. 

Shoman details raids by Zionist occupation forces in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009, in which 26,892 orange, lemon, and palm trees were uprooted, the family home and water wells were destroyed, and 616 dunums of labored land were turned into desert. 

We will continue planting orange trees. / We love our land. / We are Palestinians from Jerusalem. / They will not uproot us. / We are here to stay. 

The Shoman family history affirms the global condition of militarization as it exists beyond weaponry. It critically examines the relationship of humans to land in the operative framework of white-supremacist settler colonialism. The colonizer seeks to extract, the native seeks to cultivate. Through the creation of nuclearized nation-states, humans wield their man-made power to dominate. In this desecration of the divine, humans have bastardized energies of creation to constitute mass suffering. 

On Sunday, December 3rd, a video of Palestinians singing in Gaza circulated on Instagram. As Shoman’s family did not waver in the face of adversity, at the barrel of a gun, the journalists at Nasser Hospital sang: “We will stay here.” 

Courtesy of The Khalid Shoman Collection

Laila Shawa, Walls of Gaza series, 1994. Lithograph.

ليلى الشوا، مجموعة جدران غزة، 1994. طباعة حجرية.

The “mother of Arabic Revolutionary art”, Laila Shawa, names American culpability in her Walls of Gaza series (1994). Superficially, the work parallels the great pop art of the 1950s. Like Warhol and Lichtenstein, Shawa employs screen printing, repetition, and appropriated imagery to depict ordinary people in her practice. Through explicit imagery of the United States dollar, red stripes, and blue stars, Shawa’s body of work identifies the role of the Zionist settler state in the greater Western imperial project. Arabic messaging makes reference to Fatah, Hamas, and the PLO. Calligraphy makes calls to “liberate the land with the rifle” and participate in a general strike. 

Graffiti became popularized in the streets of Palestine as an anonymous outlet created to bypass heavy Zionist censorship. Through her Walls of Gaza series, Shawa put forth her identity to give voice to the anonymous masses. The harrowing undertone of Shawa’s work is the theme of continuity. This work, conceptualized nearly three decades ago, underlines the fundamental reality that Zionism is an active project. The images presented by Shawa embody destruction, militarization, and desecration of land. They showcase the extractive nature of imperialism, capitalism, and colonialism. They are in direct violation of everything that represents a love of a land. 

Courtesy of The Khalid Shoman Collection

Emily Jacir, Crossing Surda (a record of going to and from work), 2002. Two-channel Video, 134'29”.

أملي جاسر،عبور سردة (تسجيل للذهاب والعودة من العمل)، 2002. إنشاء فيديو من قناتين، ''29'134.

As I make my descent to the space hosting Emily Jacir’s Crossing Surda, I pass a citrus tree.

On December 9th, 2002, Jacir decided to record her daily walk to work across the Surda checkpoint to Birzeit University. When the Zionist occupation forces saw Jacir with her camera, they detained her at gunpoint for three hours and confiscated the videotape. When Jacir was released and returned home, she defiantly cut a hole in the bottom of her bag and placed her video camera there. 

Crossing Surda is a testimony to the daily harassment that serves as one of the fundamental pillars of occupation. The ethnic cleansing of Palestine is gradual, decimal, and systemic. Through encroaching on the banal, military occupation strives to occupy the minds of Palestinians. The occupation interferes with Jacir’s everyday journey to work, imposing complications and stressors that are antithetical to life, livelihood, and productivity. In her act of defiance, Jacir refuses to succumb to erasure. She refuses to allow her lived experience to be made invisible. Through Jacir’s lens, Crossing Surda brings the body of the viewer into immediate, immersive dialogue with the realities depicted. 

In Solidarity with Palestine experiments with scale, spanning decades of systemic expulsion, extrapolation, exploitation, occupation, and oppression throughout the entire land of historic Palestine. The exhibition hosts an analysis that contracts and expands, pushes and pulls, exploring infinite capacities for reflection. Many of the works featured in In Solidarity with Palestine examine the every day, but in doing so, affirm 75 years of ordinary resistance. The works positioned in dialogue with one another are simultaneously global and local - their themes have domestic applicability throughout all of the land of Palestine. Through the lens of Western imperialist ambition, the works also recall the reproduction of colonial tactics that have spanned the world throughout time. 

At its heart, In Solidarity with Palestine is a culmination of personal stories of a longing for a land, a tender yet profound desire for freedom, and an unwavering commitment to that cause. The exhibition is reflective of the history and context of the Palestinian liberation struggle, and active, looking forward to the path to freedom. It is a manifestation of the Palestinian refusal to accept the conditions set forth by supremacist ideologies. It activates the artist as a critical dissident and interventionist. It faces head-on the weaponization of capitalism as a container that censors and prohibits artistic freedom as a power for change. It honors the work of artists who refuse to partner with their oppressor. 

The message is clear - the Palestinian people resist. They plant trees, they rebuild their homes, they make art. Their spirits cannot be stifled. They will not be uprooted. Even in exile, they will never abandon Palestine. Despite 75 years of methodical cruelty, these acts of violence are futile in the face of the Palestinian people. Numerous times the seas, the trees and the hills of Palestine have seen empires come to power and be dismantled. Palestinian liberation is inevitable. 

In Solidarity with Palestine awakens feelings of anger, longing, and profound grief. It leaves me devastated yet optimistic, alone yet in community. I exit Darat al Funun as the sun descends on the rugged hills of al-Weibdeh. I head home on foot. It is November of 2023, but I can feel the presence of the Fedayeen, taking refuge in the landscape of al-Weibdeh during Black September of 1970. The aroma of jasmine billows, filling the streets and flowing from the trees that stretch over the stone walls. I wonder what the jasmine trees have seen. I cast my eyes up towards the bullet-riddled buildings that swallow me. I am 70 kilometers from Al-Jisr (King Hussein Bridge), but in my bones, I am in Palestine. 

*Other artists featured in the exhibition are Samira Badran, Rula Halawani, Khaled Hourani, Rachid Koraïchi, Abdul Hay Mosallam, Ahmad Nawash, Ismail Shammout, and Wael Shawky. A video of a lecture on the Nakba by Walid Khalidi and a film of the last interview with Edward Said are also on display in the ground floor of the exhibition space. The show is ongoing through the end of March 2024.