Regarding One’s Pain

This is a reflective testimony about conceptualising and curating the (100 ShaheedIn Arabic etymology the word has three meanings: a faithful witness, one of the 99 names of God, and a person dying for a cause, connoting bearing witness in one's flesh ...-100 Lives) art memorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event ... exhibition (2001-2003) 1). I attempted to present an art project with the essence of the concepts of two unalienable human attributes often denied to Palestinians: dignity and freedom. The project became a crucible of perceptions and projections about self representation and politics.

Art and culture practitioners in Palestine live a unique situation of being part of a post-colonial hybrid world, under an enduringly anachronistic brutal and dehumanising occupation; forcing the constant construction of a quasi essentialist narrative of resistance, perpetually engaging in what Michel Foucault called a “practice of liberty”.

September 1993 saw the signature of the Oslo interim peace accords, which established a national Palestinian Authority in Palestine, preceded by the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Palestinian towns. The brief interlude that lasted until the failure of the Camp David peace talks in the summer of 2000 saw the continuation of occupation and its repressionIn repression, the person is expelling or withholding an idea or feeling from the consciousness ... in the countryside, but a short-lived economic recovery in the main towns. The failure of Camp David brought about the second Intifada on September 29, 2000, and its repressionIn repression, the person is expelling or withholding an idea or feeling from the consciousness ... in an unprecedented manner with shootings at demonstrators, shellings of urban agglomerations, military incursions, and a fully fledged multi-month siege and curfew on all West Bank towns, and the ongoing construction of the separation Wall.

For the first time in the history of the occupation, the phenomenon of the ShaheedIn Arabic etymology the word has three meanings: a faithful witness, one of the 99 names of God, and a person dying for a cause, connoting bearing witness in one's flesh ... appeared in force. The Palestinian liberation movement often modeled itself on Algeria's struggle for independence. However, where Algeria’s grand narrative put its million ShaheedIn Arabic etymology the word has three meanings: a faithful witness, one of the 99 names of God, and a person dying for a cause, connoting bearing witness in one's flesh ... at the forefront, Palestinian Shuhada (plural of ShaheedIn Arabic etymology the word has three meanings: a faithful witness, one of the 99 names of God, and a person dying for a cause, connoting bearing witness in one's flesh ...) had numbered much less. The principal individual symbol of the occupation had been the prisoner and the Fedaee (freedom fighter). But now, the repressionIn repression, the person is expelling or withholding an idea or feeling from the consciousness ... of the Intifada introduced the ShaheedIn Arabic etymology the word has three meanings: a faithful witness, one of the 99 names of God, and a person dying for a cause, connoting bearing witness in one's flesh ... concept in Palestine. With the daily shootings of demonstrators at checkpoints, the shellings of built-up areas, the intentional or “collateral” damage of targeted assassinations, dozens of people were dying in the early days of the Intifada. Unlike earlier Shuhada, these were non-combatant young men, children, or the elderly. The term of the ShaheedIn Arabic etymology the word has three meanings: a faithful witness, one of the 99 names of God, and a person dying for a cause, connoting bearing witness in one's flesh ... that had been understood to be a person dying for a cause now also designated unarmed or unwitting victimsIn different sciences the term victim has different meanings. The term is most often use in criminology, religion, psychotherapy and New Age context ... of violence.

Whereas the dead in the Middle East are usually eulogised and mourned in the public space by newspaper announcements placed by family and friends, these Shuhada were mourned and celebrated in posters appearing a few hours after their deaths in the streets of their hometowns. If they stood out by their actions, or by the gruesome circumstances of their death, their posters crossed the fragmented territory of Palestine to appear in other towns. Some, like Mohammed al Durra 2) and Fares Odeh 3), were immortalised in iconic visuals that travelled across borders.

In a country without a conventional army or a state apparatus to institutionalise the memorialisation of conventional war dead, street posters were the ephemeral memorials of Shuhada. And the incredible tales of dashed hopes and might-have-beens of these dead young men that circulated everywhere were becoming new building blocks of the Palestinian collective consciousness.

I was at the time running the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre in Ramallah, which had what was at that time the only art gallery in the West Bank, and ran a programme of art workshops for artists and children.

At the same time, my 1998 work on Palestinian narrative recovery through collecting testimonies of survivors of the Palestinian Nakba of 1948 4) made me realise the relative dearth of available work at the time on Palestinian oral history and micro history. Caught since 1948 in a cycle of resistance, dispersal, exile and survival, Palestinians had had scant time to gather and archive their past. In addition, Palestinians were now labouring under a new accusation, that of instrumentalising death, and of disregarding the death of their own children.

Personally, it had also been ten years since one of my brothers was killed in an accident at the age of 23. I started comparing the outpouring of solidarity and affection that surrounded my family then with the fate of those killed now every day, and the ones who would be killed in the next few weeks. I knew how their families would be crushed by their loss like ours was ten years ago. But I also felt that their griefGrief without complications is a normal response to loss. In the first phase it is usually manifested as a state of shock, with expression of numbness or bewilderment ... might be relativised, for what community would have the time and the emotional fortitude to devote to consoling the bereaved mother, father or siblings of a young man in their midst, when there were ten others every day whose life stories might be more moving, and whose circumstances of death might be more gruesome? Wouldn't this griefGrief without complications is a normal response to loss. In the first phase it is usually manifested as a state of shock, with expression of numbness or bewilderment ... be relativised by the death of so many, at the same time, and in the same circumstances?

I thought of a kind of art project that would dignify the families' griefGrief without complications is a normal response to loss. In the first phase it is usually manifested as a state of shock, with expression of numbness or bewilderment ..., provide a space where these interrupted lives would unfold and archive them in words and images, instead of surrendering to the death machine that cut them short.

An art project would enable the unfolding of narratives of ordinary lives within the interstices of opposing political reifying discourses: Inside Palestine: victimhood or hero-isation, and outside Palestine: altering dehumanisation. The project also challenged the logic of art exploited for the political mobilisation or the generation of pity, in favour of a basic need to fashion a narrative out of silence, that of the absence of narrative about the lives of those who are economically and politically disenfranchised: the “subaltern”.

In terms of space articulation, there was a path in the Sakakini gallery, beginning at the older Shuhada's room, through the young ones', ending with the children's room. This would be a journey with 100 stations, for each ShaheedIn Arabic etymology the word has three meanings: a faithful witness, one of the 99 names of God, and a person dying for a cause, connoting bearing witness in one's flesh ...’s name, photograph and personal object.

These two mediating devices would draw the contours of the life, and the companion book would sketch out each one’s reality and aspirations. These mediating devices would stand alone, uncluttered by reductive, exploitative, maudlin, or otherwise reifying framing discourses or presentational displays.

As for the photographs, we received mostly formal portraits taken during happy occasions such as religious feasts, graduations, weddings or engagements. The vanity usually exuded by formal portraits was absent here, starkly illustrating Palestinian historian Elias Sanbar’s observation about the presence of “Those hunted out of time (…) who have succeeded anew to be visible”, “Anxious to integrate photographic time, of not being left out of the image” 5). The exception was Alaa, a teenager who had been too young and too poor to be photographed in life, and whose only photograph was that of the points of entry and exit of bullets into his dead body. I did not use the photograph, but kept him in the MemorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event ... since his lack of visual representation did not negate the reality of his existence.

As for the objects, I asked the families to provide an intimate possession. Since many of them were poor, they were mostly clothes, not the consumer society accoutrements of youth elsewhere. We also received some toys, work tools, copy books, schoolbags, and of course two roughly hewn slingshots, fragile tools of defiance and resistance for their owners, but also the “weapon of the crime”. These owner-less objects were now useless. The rupture created by this newly acquired uselessness transformed them into objects that could find a new identity, and a new use in an art space.

After I developed the concept and selected the objects and photographs, painter Samir Salameh designed transparent boxes to display each object, wrapped and tied with a ribbon of twine. Lights were dimmed to direct the gaze onto the objects and photographs.

As I discarded bloodstained objects from the exhibit, I avoided the use of the colours red and black from the companion book that had a unifying beige colour scheme to deal with the heterogeneity of the objects, and featured Isabel de la Cruz’s sepia photographs of the objects, again to sidestep the black signifier of mourningMourning, act of bereavement, grief and mourning are terms that apply to the psychological reactions of those who survive a significant loss ....

Even though my intention at the start was to focus on each ShaheedIn Arabic etymology the word has three meanings: a faithful witness, one of the 99 names of God, and a person dying for a cause, connoting bearing witness in one's flesh ...'s individuality, after working on the MemorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event ... for five months, from selecting the objects received for display, to reading the accounts of the lives of the Shuhada, and then writing them and cross checking their facts, the end of the process was different. This was reflected in the curatorial statement Each ShaheedIn Arabic etymology the word has three meanings: a faithful witness, one of the 99 names of God, and a person dying for a cause, connoting bearing witness in one's flesh ...s’ biography retold elements of the same tale a 100 times: As etymologically, a ShaheedIn Arabic etymology the word has three meanings: a faithful witness, one of the 99 names of God, and a person dying for a cause, connoting bearing witness in one's flesh ... is a “faithful witnessA witness is someone who has firsthand knowledge about a crime or dramatic event through their senses (e.g. seeing, hearing, smelling, touching) and can help certify important considerations to the crime or event ...”, each of the 100 biographies in the companion book bore witnessA witness is someone who has firsthand knowledge about a crime or dramatic event through their senses (e.g. seeing, hearing, smelling, touching) and can help certify important considerations to the crime or event ... to a whole greater than their sum. Michel de Certeau wrote of city walkers in “an urban text they write without being able to read”. But in this case, these young men’s lives and deaths wrote of a trans-historical, cross gender, a-religious, and cross class Palestinian condition of a reality shackled by occupation.

Their lives painted a condition beginning with a family's loss and uprooting in the Nakba, continuing with the subsequent denied opportunities, and miseries of the refugee's condition. It progressed with a litany of deprivation, servitude, interrupted childhoods, Odysseus-like wanderings, house demolitions, killings, injuries and imprisonments. Even those whose lives appeared removed from the yoke of occupation, finally succumbed to its reach, with the circumstances of their premature passing. Yet, these lives also portrayed an irrepressible longing for freedom and spirit of struggle, illustrating Homi Bhabha’s observation that: “It is from those who have suffered the sentence of history – subjugation, domination, Diaspora, displacement - that we learn our most enduring lessons for living”.

This story was told repeatedly: Mahmoud, a survivor of collaborators' denunciations, killed three days after his marriage, and after two of his friends had been killed in the same place where he was to die. Salameh, shot while returning to his refugee camp home after ending his shift at the Jericho Casino. Jihad, the well-to-do returning exile, and Ahmed, the security chief's nephew, killed at checkpoints. Omar, whose family's ancestral lands are now Ariel Sharon's farm, Mansour, killed on his way to buying a falafel sandwich for forming a V sign in the face of soldiers. Rahma and Aziza, two matronly friends waiting for a cab the day of the first helicopter-targeted assassination. Abdulhamid, the returning playwright and painter whose body was found riddled with bullets. Hussam, shot on his daily commute between his divorced parents' homes. Aseel, the teenage peace militant beaten to death with a rifle butt, etc.

The MemorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event ... art exhibit opened in Ramallah on February 20, 2001. Dealing with the families' pain over the past months had been a trying experience. Out of respect for their griefGrief without complications is a normal response to loss. In the first phase it is usually manifested as a state of shock, with expression of numbness or bewilderment ..., a special visiting day was set aside for them. They told us more stories about their children, some bringing more objects, and newer photographs. Later, some families whose children had died after work on the MemorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event ... started asking for their inclusion.

The MemorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event ... was thronged with visitors everywhere it travelled until 2003, to the Palestinian cities of Nablus and Nazareth only due to the siege, and then on to ten other Arab and Japanese cities 6).

Working on the MemorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event ... itself and then listening to audience reactions showed the visceral need for society to grieve, and to express its anger at what was being done. While working on the MemorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event ..., we received countless unsolicited suggestions, from artists, academics, politicians, ordinary people, in Palestine and the Diaspora, about the best way they thought the MemorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event ... ought to be set up. This was certainly no ordinary art project, receiving scant popular attention or interest: Because of the immediacy of the political situation, and given the fact that the MemorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event ... dealt with the hyper-sensitive issue of self representation, all wanted to contribute. This continued after the opening, when we received in Palestine and in some Arab countries, further suggestions about how the MemorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event ... should be modified, usually in an expository mapping direction. My concern throughout was to reaffirm the artistic nature and purpose of the endeavour, and the subjectivity of curatorial choices.

In terms of the reception of the work itself - an alternative representation of mourningMourning, act of bereavement, grief and mourning are terms that apply to the psychological reactions of those who survive a significant loss ... in the context of occupation: secular, humanistic, minimalist, and non factional - we were gratified to find scores of people, from all age groups and both genders thronging the gallery. I had been used to the scant popular appeal of the high-modernity templates of arts and culture structures that me and my colleagues operated. Like we who had worked on the MemorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event ..., people needed to work through their griefGrief without complications is a normal response to loss. In the first phase it is usually manifested as a state of shock, with expression of numbness or bewilderment ..., to give a face to the spiraling numbers, and a story to a name they had heard. Another reason why the project may have found this resonance in Palestine was that it revolved around life stories of people who came to bear the brunt of the Israeli repressionIn repression, the person is expelling or withholding an idea or feeling from the consciousness ..., the economically and politically disenfranchised. The MemorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event ... could not give them a voice, but it restored part of their presence and reaffirmed their human dignity denied by the circumstances of their death.

Sometimes visitors came more than once, bringing acquaintances with them the second time. The companion book was given away in Palestine, and quickly ran out. A waiting list was opened to distribute the second printing. In some parts of historical Palestine, the MemorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event ... had another resonance, for among the 100 ShaheedIn Arabic etymology the word has three meanings: a faithful witness, one of the 99 names of God, and a person dying for a cause, connoting bearing witness in one's flesh ... were 12 Israeli citizens who had been killed in October 2000 by Israeli police, in demonstrations of solidarity with West Bank and Gaza Palestinians. The MemorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event ... blended them seamlessly with the others coming from the fragmented Palestinian territory made up of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem.

As the potential for political decoding and exploitation of the MemorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event ... always had to be sidestepped in terms of public reception or in media coverage, it also had to be sidestepped in its display outside its original installation site.

In terms of the project’s reception by Western audiences, the MemorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event ... had received wide and favourable coverage in the major print media of Europe and Northern America, through their local correspondents looking for something different, and the human interest angle. We also received requests to host the MemorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event ... in galleries and museums in Western Europe and North America.

Then came the 9/11The September 11, 2001 attacks (often referred to as 9/11) were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by al-Qaeda upon the United States ... terrorist attacks in New York and Washington in 2001. One consequence was that the word ShaheedIn Arabic etymology the word has three meanings: a faithful witness, one of the 99 names of God, and a person dying for a cause, connoting bearing witness in one's flesh ... acquired a new, ominous meaning. In Arabic etymology the word has three meanings: A faithful witnessA witness is someone who has firsthand knowledge about a crime or dramatic event through their senses (e.g. seeing, hearing, smelling, touching) and can help certify important considerations to the crime or event ..., one of the 99 names of God, and a person dying for a cause, connoting bearing witnessA witness is someone who has firsthand knowledge about a crime or dramatic event through their senses (e.g. seeing, hearing, smelling, touching) and can help certify important considerations to the crime or event ... in one’s flesh. There are in Islam Shuhada, people killed or tortured in the early days of Islam, but who do not have saintly status. With the development of anti-colonial struggles in Arab countries, anyone killed by colonial forces became a ShaheedIn Arabic etymology the word has three meanings: a faithful witness, one of the 99 names of God, and a person dying for a cause, connoting bearing witness in one's flesh ..., without religious connotations attached to the term. Indeed, Israel uses the word ShaheedIn Arabic etymology the word has three meanings: a faithful witness, one of the 99 names of God, and a person dying for a cause, connoting bearing witness in one's flesh ... to name its own war dead in official Arabic language broadcasts, and also on the memorials to its Arab collaborators. This was the main reason why I eschewed using the term “martyrToday, it is an expression most commonly used to describe someone who has been killed for his/her religious beliefs ...” in English or French, to avoid the historically religious Christian connotations.

But ShaheedIn Arabic etymology the word has three meanings: a faithful witness, one of the 99 names of God, and a person dying for a cause, connoting bearing witness in one's flesh ... became in the West synonymous with suicideAccording to epidemiological investigations between 1.1% and 4.6% of the population have a suicidal attempt at some point during their life ... bombers, hinting at some quasi religious cult of death, and thus becoming a new tool of demonisation. This paranoia affected the 100 ShaheedIn Arabic etymology the word has three meanings: a faithful witness, one of the 99 names of God, and a person dying for a cause, connoting bearing witness in one's flesh ...-100 Lives project through the withdrawal of some invitations from European galleries, and also with failed lobbying to have the MemorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event ... close in Japan.

The MemorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event ... was not a finished art product, but was itself a conceptual process, part of a changing political context. I selected only 100 ShaheedIn Arabic etymology the word has three meanings: a faithful witness, one of the 99 names of God, and a person dying for a cause, connoting bearing witness in one's flesh ... to underscore the symbolic and artistic nature of the project, but also to symbolically mediate the thousands of others who were dying continuously.

Further violence continued through 2001, and the repressionIn repression, the person is expelling or withholding an idea or feeling from the consciousness ... took many forms: With the curfews and siege of 2002, hundreds of thousands throughout the West Bank were imprisoned at home, helpless and terrorised, lives suspended out of time and place while their places of work were often vandalised and looted by the Israeli army 7).

The MemorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event ... continued to exercise an unexpected formal influence, as the format of the MemorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event ... was copied in various towns in Palestine to honour the most recent dead who had not been part of the memorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event .... Its design was echoed in a 2005 exhibition on Palestinian prisoners, displaying their letters in glass cases. The MemorialA memorial is an object which serves as a memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event ... was also featured in two Palestinian films: Alia Arasoughly's 2001 This is not Living and Liana Bader’s 2002 The Green Bird. Even in 2004 Tehran, an Iranian artist used the format for a photo exhibition about earthquake victimsIn different sciences the term victim has different meanings. The term is most often use in criminology, religion, psychotherapy and New Age context ..., but focused on 100 photos of unidentified corpses. In 2005, a Dutch artist and an Israeli artist mounted projects featuring objects of Israeli and Palestinian victimsIn different sciences the term victim has different meanings. The term is most often use in criminology, religion, psychotherapy and New Age context ... of terror.

This instinct to protest the wrongful and premature disappearance of the Palestinian Shuhada was also part of a universal need to create meaning out of death, to erase silence by naming and identifying, as evidenced by two very different projects: The New York Times “Portraits in GriefGrief without complications is a normal response to loss. In the first phase it is usually manifested as a state of shock, with expression of numbness or bewilderment ...” section, which documented the lives of those murdered on 9/11The September 11, 2001 attacks (often referred to as 9/11) were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by al-Qaeda upon the United States ..., and which were later gathered in a bestselling book; and the 2005 “Disappeared in America” art project, which sought to identify and document the men who disappeared in security dragnets in the US in the aftermath of 9/11The September 11, 2001 attacks (often referred to as 9/11) were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by al-Qaeda upon the United States ....

This process was an instance of gazing at one’s own pain, during not after the traumatic shock that is very much enduring. The primary motivation being narrative recovery and affirmation, directed at the very community experiencing this pain.