The Palestine Hotel, Nablus
Sitting in the University Library at Cambridge, reading the sculptor Eric Gill’s diaries of his trip to Palestine in 1934 (he had been commissioned by the architect Austen St. Barbe … Continue reading
Farewell to a Painting
It was a genuine wrench to walk away from True Belief Belongs to the Realm of Real Knowledge, a huge, sublime wall-painting by Idris Khan. The Whitworth Gallery exhibition of … Continue reading
Show me the Money
There are few better ways to actually propel me to an exhibition than to send out ‘last day’ notifications. Hence pottering down to the People’s History Museum in Manchester with … Continue reading
Reviewed: Steve Sabella – Photography 1997-2014
Electronic Intifada, 2nd November 2015 Some of the most viscerally disturbing pictures in the book are to be found in the 2006 sequence titled “Exit.” This is made up of … Continue reading
New review: ‘Garden State’ at the Mosaic Rooms
Electronic Intifada, 28 May 2015 But the images also have a larger narrative; the Carmel forest — insofar as any landscape in an inhabited region is “natural” — is not … Continue reading
Nothing more violent than silence
A couple of years ago I had the honour of being invited to speak at Manchester’s beautiful John Rylands Library (the beautiful Victorian original on Deansgate, not the concrete monstrosity … Continue reading
New review: ‘Traces & Revelations’ at Durham’s Oriental Museum
Electronic Intifada, 10th April 2014 But in hosting Traces and Revelations, a viscerally exciting new show of paintings by Hazem Harb and Mohammed Joha, the Oriental Museum at the University … Continue reading
New review: Kite-flying film shows Gaza’s kids grow old too soon
Electronic Intifada, 10th December 2013 In July 2010, approximately 7,500 children gathered on a beach at Seifa in northern Gaza to fly kites. They were aiming to beat their own … Continue reading
Distractions and Destructions
Here, courtesy of Visualizing Palestine, is a graphic which is: a) a terrifying illustration of the way in which the Israeli government has successfully used the idea of ‘peace talks’ … Continue reading
New review: ‘My Love Awaits Me by the Sea’
Electronic Intifada, 6 November 2013 In 2003, Hassan Hourani, a rising star of Palestinian art, drowned in the sea off Jaffa, aged just 29. Having trained in Baghdad, exhibited across … Continue reading
(Paid) research/curatorial internship, Alwaleed Centre, Edinburgh
This very exciting looking ad just came up from the Alwaleed Centre, based in the same department as me at Edinburgh University… Call for research internship applications 10-month part-time research … Continue reading
New review: ‘In the City’ at London’s P21 Gallery
Electronic Intifada, 21st October 2013 [T]he works shown in In the City stress the interaction between cultures and between tradition and modernity. They assert that Middle Eastern and North African … Continue reading
New article: Edinburgh exhibits Nakba memorial plans
Electronic Intifada, 10th October 2013 Omar Mohammad is sensitive to the danger that to create a monument to something is to place it in the past, to declare it to … Continue reading
New article: Palestinian artist John Halaka interviewed
Electronic Intifada, 30th August 2013 “I’ve faced quite a few problems, resistance to my work. In the US, if an artist makes work that addresses the Palestinian situation — and … Continue reading
‘Head over Heels in Saudi Arabia’ at Edinburgh Fringe
Head Over Heels in Saudi Arabia is a one-woman show by Maisah Sobahi, in her day-job a lecturer at a university in Jeddah and now the first ever Saudi performer … Continue reading
New article: Khaled Jarrar and new artists from Palestine
Electronic Intifada, 15th July 2013 Entering the gallery, you are confronted by an eight-foot-high replica of the wall. It stretches away to your left, forming a narrow corridor, funneling the … Continue reading
Sarah Irving 