Events
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5.6.2012 | KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin

Key of Return in Berlin

Talk with Khaled Hourani, Samah Jabr, Toleen Touq

A public talk about the journey of the Key of Return from the Aida Refugee Camp near Bethlehem to Berlin, and the possible meanings of this journey.

In collaboration with the Young Curators Workshop Curating in Times of Need.

Thanks to our Palestinian partners –Toleen Touq, Khaled Hourrani, and the community of the Aida Refugee Camp– brought to our attention the existence of the Key of Return as a meaningful social sculpture, as a manifestation of a non-violent political struggle, as a stance taken by a community of the refugee camp, a group of non-artists engaged in doing art. The key traveled to Berlin to be exhibited alongside with many other works by artists from the region (i.e. Khaled Jarrar, Yael Bartana, David Reeb) who create parallel political narrations and establish normality and political representation through art. The key finally is an outcome of citizens’ art: present not in the galleries but rather in civil disobedience, politics, politics of memory, or educational activities seen as the worse kind of art. The talk will present the original context of the key, the different narrations stemming from its travel and its artistic (mirroring the ‘Picasso in Palestine’ project), social, and political contexts.

Toleen Touq – co-curator of the project will reflect on the context, terms, and production of the action and will engage in a conversation with Khaled Hourani, Director of International Academy of Art Palestinein Ramallah, and Samah Jabr, a Palestinian psychiatrist working in the West Bank.