katalog-overlapping voices - Ritesinstitute

curator´s statement
amal murkus
the instruments that i use as a singer are
usually musical instruments. my most fundamental
instrument is my voice, as well
as that which resides within my singing and
my voice. the words of my songs embody
my dreams in a creative space, a space
that is inseparably connected to what is
happening in my country and to all the
things my memory, the memory of my parents,
and the memory of my people provide.
sometimes, memory turns into a
homeland and an identity, and homesickness
takes the form of a sacred prayer and
sad singing. the homeland is the spring of
inspiration and also the source of artistic
inspiration. Being away from his homeland
might even destroy the artist! or else it
strengthens the artist, for he has used his
power and strength, and most importantly,
he has used his internal freedom.
my voice enables me to cross borders, to
take a journey in a book from which i am
carrying a poem to sing. my voice can accompany
a picture or a scene in a movie.
it can also stretch the borders of an exhibition
and provide its space with a unique
ambience.
this time, i entered the world of the visual
arts not as a singer, but as a so-called exhibition
co-curator! i am fairly familiar with the
world of the visual arts. Yet it is another form
of creativity; it has its own language and instruments;
the ability to fly in the spaces of others and
to engage in a dialogue without using a language
and even without a voice!
an artist does not have the capacity to build the refugee
a house or to return him to his homeland
where he left his house and property. he cannot
bring back to life a child who became a martyr following
a barbaric shelling by military aircraft; similarly,
he stands with empty, outstretched hands
when confronted with the challenge of returning to
life a father, a mother, a brother, or a friend who was
killed in a war. above all, an artist cannot defeat the
occupation and quell its oppression of the people
and the artist himself, or stop the confiscation of
land on which the artist himself might be living.
there is no other small country like ours to which
to compare the number of borders that exist here
1 OVERLAPPING VOICES
I was singing,
and you were firing bullets;
I was writing,
and you were firing bullets;
I was reading,
and you were firing bullets;
I was playing notes,
and you were firing bullets;
I was drawing, and you were firing bullets;
I was sculpting, and you were firing bullets
... in all directions
For the sake of justice, the good,
the beauty and for the cause.
And now here they are,
your comrades of the long journey,
Regularly they visit your tomb so they
could recite today’s foreign currency rates!
(Mohammed Maghout)
between the individual and his environment; permanent
and movable borders at every other step;
borders everywhere. Borders between the human
being and his right to live a normal life; borders
that turn natural life into a daily miracle. Relying
on his artistic creativity, the artist – whoever he is
and whatever the field of his creativity – cannot
destroy the separation wall. the wall is an exile.
the wall does not only separate Palestinians from
israelis; but Palestinians from Palestinians and Palestinians
from their land. it is a wall that prevents
the artist from reaching his studio and workplace;
it stands between him and arriving at the intended
places for revising a piece of music or recording a
song which will in any case not be broadcast on radio
or tv because it does not speak the language
of the majority. the space available for the artist
becomes continuously more narrow: the artist is
suffocated; he wants to fly but is prevented from
doing so! there is no sign of hope, for
peace and freedom are intangible and the
horizon is shrouded in heavy fog. there is
no sign of hope.
compared to his people’s struggle for domicile
and freedom, the artist’s personal
worries dwindle. how then, can an artist
ask for a gallery, for an exhibition, or for
colours?
a real artist has no right to allow the misery,
pain, and disaster of millions to fade
to oblivion; millions of refugees, exiled, displaced,
stateless, and deprived of their
Right of Return to their home and of the
right of citizenship in the countries where
they currently reside. in the peculiarity of
our Palestinian condition, the great majority
of the Palestinian people was exposed,
60 years ago, to the crimes of expulsion
and evacuation. even today, millions of Palestinian
refugees are still living in their
camps of exile and are deprived of the basic
needs of life, of their civil rights, and of
the Right of Return to their homeland, from
which they were expelled in 1948; they are
deprived even of the right to return to their
refugee camps, which are continuously
destroyed whenever any conflict or dispute
erupts.
since the Palestinian Plight, the nakba, of
1948, and all throughout the 60 years of
the state of israel, consecutive israeli governments
have adopted the policy of denial and non-recognition
of the existence of a Palestinian arab minority
living in israel, whose number amounts to more
than one million (to which i myself, amal, and a
recognizable number of participating artists belong).
they are, on the one hand, israeli citizens;
and are, on the other hand, part of the Palestinian
people who hung on to their land. the state deprives
this minority of its civil and collective national
rights, and considers its members unrelated
and disconnected sects who have no national
bond. israeli authorities also did not hesitate to
pursue the well-known “divide and conquer” policy,
which aims at the elimination of the rights of
the particular sectors of this minority, and at the
confiscation of their land no matter what religion
they belong to.