Exhibit Highlights

The theme of the exhibit focuses on 1948 when Israel was created and 800,00 Palestinians were expelled and driven our of their homes into refugee camps.

WOODBRIDGE, CT, USA, April 27, 2023/EINPresswire.com/ -- Palestine Museum US to participate in major architectural exhibition in Venice, Italy commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba (Arabic for catastrophe)

Palestine Museum US is pleased to announce its participation in the Venice Biennial Architecture Exhibition joining 220 other exhibitors sponsored by the European Cultural Centre (ECC). The Museum presentation is titled From Palestine: Our Past, Our Future and will open May 20 and close on November 26, 2023. The exhibit is hosted by ECC at Palazzo Mora, one of its three venues in Venice. It occupies 150 square meters of historic Palazzo Mora making it the largest exhibit in the building.

The theme of the exhibit focuses on the year 1948 which saw the creation of the state of Israel on May 15 as the culmination of a 50 year settler colonial project aimed at establishing an exclusive Zionist Jewish state in Palestine and expelling its non-Jewish population. The Zionist forces in Palestine launched a military campaign implementing a pre-planned strategy to depopulate and destroy Palestinian towns and villages. Over 200 villages were depopulated and controlled by the time the State of Israel was declared. By the end of 1948, 500 villages were depopulated and many of which were destroyed to prevent the return their inhabitants. About 800,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes and exiled to refugee camps which still exist today in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Israel changed the names of Palestinian towns and villages, in some cases covered the ruins with invasive tree species, and changed the history books to erase any reference to Palestine or Palestinians.

“This exhibit shines a light on what Israel did in 1948 that most people of the world are not aware of,” says Faisal Saleh, founder and director of the Palestine Museum US and chief curator of the exhibit. “We hope to identify all the villages that were erased and the truth that was buried by Israel,” he continues.

The works of 19, mostly Palestinian artists and architects, are featured in several groups including, animated maps, virtual reality displays of reconstructed destroyed Palestinian villages, architectural student projects re-imagining four lost villages, artwork, photography and textiles.

An animated map of 1948 Palestine shows the timeline of village depopulation/destruction. Over a 10 minute span, viewers watch chronologically as the area of each village lights up on the map in one of three colors depending on the method of depopulation used by the Zionist forces and later the Israeli military. One color identifies the 36 villages that experienced massacres, another villages where the population was terrorized (psychological warfare) into panic and fled with their children fearing for their lives, and the third color signifies evictions by force at gunpoint. Palestinian refugees and their descendants (who now count in the millions) will watch as each sees the name of their village come up on the date it was taken down. “This will bring to life what exactly happened in 1948 and clearly debunk Ben-Gurion’s (first Israeli prime minister) prediction and myth of the old dying and the young forgetting,” Saleh emphasizes.

Four virtual reality videos will simulate re-created villages and neighborhoods developed from archival photographs and maps. Altogether eight video display monitors will be used to showcase the high tech exhibits and student village designs.

The first half of the floor of the exhibit hall will substantially be covered by a seven-meter long walk-on map of 1948 Palestine. In the center of the other half, a 2-meter (diameter) disc holding a collage of 1,000 photographs of the Great March of Return (Gaza 2018-2019) will rotate one revolution every minute.

The exhibit also includes four historic black and white and four current color photographs featuring Palestinians and Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza, West Bank, Syria and Lebanon.

Artwork of different genres representing Nakba sentiments and a future Palestine is displayed on the spacious walls. Colorful painted and embroidered banners hang from the ceiling in front of the back windows of Gallery A where the exhibit is housed.

Participating artists and architects:

SALMAN ABU SITTA, GHASSAN ABU LABAN, ALAA ALBABA, TALA ALFOQAHA, NABIL ANANI, SAMIRA BADRAN, SHAIMA’ FAROUKI, JØRGEN GRINDE, HANIN HAYDAR, JACQUELINE BÉJANI, SAMIA HALABY,
JOHN HALAKAH, MARGARET OLIN, SOBHIYA HASAN QAIS, TAQI SPATEEN, STEVE-SABELLA, ZAIN AL SHARAF WAHBEH, NISREEN ZAHDA, OLA ZAREINI
FEATURED STUDENT VILLAGE PROJECTS
QULA (Architect Arwa Qalalwa)
SAFFURIYYA (Nayrouz Ali)
SUBA (Majd Jahshan, Donia Alsalman, and Sajeda Alnaqrooz) 
SUHMATA (Maha Mansour, Alaa Hammad, and Asma Al Saqqa)

Exhibition Facts:

From Palestine: Our Past, Our Future
Opening Reception: May 20, 18:30
Palazzo Mora, Venice, Italy
Hours: 10:00 to 18:00, daily, closed Tuesdays, May 20 - November 26, 2023

Faisal Saleh
Palestine Museum US
+1 203-530-2248
faisal.saleh@palestinemuseum.us
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