Short Summary
The photo exhibition
tells the story of unrequited love. Girl loves boy, boy doesn't love girl back.
Girl, in fact
desires boy, though boy desires something else. The story is set in Haifa, Nazareth and beyond.
Your support will be crucial in helping us launch the photo exhibition on November 1 in Haifa and on November 27 in Nazareth!
Astral Desire
utilizes the concept of the astral, which is a plane beyond the physical or
energetic planes of life. In the astral state, a body is able to leave the
physical and travel along the astral plane, able to experience the physical
world, but as if floating, from the astral level. In the series, the girl
leaves her body and astral travels from Nazareth to Haifa to be near the boy. The
exhibition harnesses the concept of the astral to tell of a rather base human
emotion, desire.
The photo series
attempts to engage the audience on the affective economy of desire – how does
desire circulate, how does it make individuals, subject and object of desire,
how much of it is ‘authentic’ and how much culturally conditioned, how much is
desire a search for recognition and the affirmation of one’s ego?
Where: The exhibition
will display in Haifa, Nazareth (Palestine 48) and in Jerusalem. There is a possibility it will show further
afield, in Ramallah for example, though this depends on funding.
When: The exhibition
will open in Haifa, with your support, on November 1 at the Abatjour Café (49 Hillel)! It will then show in Nazareth at Kitaabon on November 27. Subsequently, it will move to Jerusalem.
Why support?
When you donate, you are extending a hand to Palestinian, female artistic expression. This exhibition is important to us because it allows us to speak of our feelings, which as humanity, we do very little of. When it comes to Palestine, it seems we can only frame it within the context of war/resistance/conflict, and not about the human beings and the thickness of their emotions, everyday routines and relationships. This exhibition is about supporting art in Palestine and about supporting the telling of human stories in Palestine. For Palestinians and others.
Who are we?
We are a team of Palestinian artists/activists.
Katie Ramadan is a published poet and photographer and hosted a successful photo exhibition in Nazareth in February 2012, entitled 'In a Different Light'. The exhibition was a thirty-photo capture of Nazareth, Toronto,
Mumbai and Paris, engaging the feelings embedded in community, loneliness and alienation. The primarily black and white exhibit was a call to courage
in the recognition that experience with the unfamiliar is the path that leads us back home.
Walid Mawid is a Palestinian curator and designer. He was the project designer and curator for the four year long 'water collection' project in Biella, Italy. He worked as costume designer for two acclaimed films on Palestine - Miral, directed by Oscar nominee, Julian Schnabel and Paradise Now, directed by Oscar nominee, the Palestinian Hany Abu-Asad. Walid and Katie worked together in the conceptualization, design and execution of the 2012 'In a Different Light' photo exhibit, which was opened by Director Hany Abu-Asad.
Sally Azzam Cook is the female model in this photo series and a social activist.
Nasser, Canadian, takes care of social media and production.
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Our models, Sally and Walid (also curator and set designer of the exhibition)
What We Need & What You Get
The following is the breakdown of the budget items in US$:
Printing $500
Framing $335
Curator and Set Design Fee $560
Promotion and Social Media Costs $110
TOTAL US$ 1,500
[In addition, we have additional costs related to equipment, per diems, insurance and transport of art, but these are being secured from other sources]
For those very generous donors who've responded to our call to support independent art/photography and to support the same in Palestine, you will win the satisfaction of having done good. If that isn't enough, we'll be gifting you with postcards of a select photo from the exhibition, and for the very generous donors, unisex organic cotton t-shirts with a print of an exhibition photo!
In the event we don't hit our goal, every penny will be made to count in realizing the exhibition - though the extent of advertising, promotion, locations where they show may be scaled back. But give today so that we won't be forced to do that!
