Photographs on Palestinian refugees by the artist John Halaka
“When circumstances are made real by another’s testimony, it becomes possible to envision change.”
James Baldwin
Three Cultures of the Mediterranean Foundation presents the exhibition ‘Portraits of Denial and Desire’ by the artist John Halaka. This work has already been displayed in the Tasneem Gallery in cooperation with the UNU-GCM (Institute on Globalization, Culture and Mobility of the UN University) in Barcelone.
The photographs in this exhibition are part of a multi-disciplinary art project that preserves and presents the personal stories of three generations of Palestinian refugees. The images strive to personalize and humanize the abstract notion of the displaced masses, making the experiences of the refugees more real, accessible and comprehensible for the viewer.
This series of pictures belong to a wider multidisciplinary project still on work. The exhibition in Seville shows part of the pictures together with some videos based on interviews to the people that appear on the portraits. This research is composed by drawings, paintings, a documentary, as well as a book that relates the stories of the different people, one by one. This work shows how the persistence of memory is a fundamental fact of the political resistance and the cultural survival.
About the artist:
John Halaka is Visual Artist and Professor of Visual Arts at the University of San Diego (United States of America), where he has taught since 1991. He received his MFA in the Visual Arts from the University of Houston in 1983, and his B.A. in Fine Arts from the City University of New York Baccalaureate Program, with Brooklyn College as home school. His artwork and documentary film projects can be seen at the following websites: www.johnhalaka.com and www.sittingcrowproductions.com.
Place of the exhibition:
Three Cultures of the Mediterranean Foundation’s headquarters.
Calle Max Planck, nº 2
41092 Isla de la Cartuja, Seville, Spain
Opening hours:
Monday to Thursday: from 9 to 19 hours
Friday: from 9 to 14 hours
Festivities and week-ends closed