Opening Reception:  August 3rd | 6pm–8pm 

INSTITUTE OF advanced  UNCERTAINTY is pleased to present PREOCCUPATIONS: PALESTINIAN LANDSCAPES, a group exhibition curated by Kathy Zarur, and featuring works by Zeina Barakeh, C. Gazaleh, Najib Joe Hakim, Manar Harb, Yazan Khalili, Suhad Khatib, and Mary Tuma.  

Preoccupations is a group exhibition of landscape art by Palestinians. However, these landscapes do not comprise a collection of straightforward facts, nor do they seek to erase histories (though some present historical rewrites). Rather, the artworks reflect a variety of relationships with the land, whether exilic, diasporic, occupied or under siege. This preoccupation with the land can be traced in poetry, literature, cinema and art to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 on the historic land of Palestine. That year marked an important moment in a series of conflicts, beginning with the Balfour Declaration in 1917, that would lead to the dispossession of indigenous Palestinians and their right to self-determination. A look at how the land of Palestine has been conjured in creative production since then offers a valuable way to gauge each historical period. 

The poet Mourid Barghouti wrote “All conflicts prefer symbols.” In a conflict as protracted as that of Palestine, symbols are bound to change. Most of the works in Preoccupations were produced in the aftermath of the Oslo Accords, an agreement meant to lead to the eventual establishment of a Palestinian nation state beside Israel. This failed agreement, along with the erection of a massive concrete wall around the West Bank, settlement building and blockade of Gaza, has proven disastrous to the everyday Palestinian. 

Some of art works in Preoccupations include recognizable symbols of the Palestinian experience, such as the redolent key, which insists on the refugees’ right of return, or the keffiyeh, which, since the great peasant uprising against the British colonial mandate in 1936-1939, has represented popular rebellion, or tatreez, unique embroidery patterns that reflect a long history of Palestinian visual culture. Alongside these familiar tropes emerges a repertoire of images that reflect new attitudes toward ongoing challenges. Shot at night, Yazan Khalili’s photographic landscape series uses darkness to imagine a different reality that denies militarized checkpoints, watchtowers and the looming concrete wall prominence in the landscape. Mary Tuma’s intimate work is comprised of bits of US maps stitched together with red thread, referencing territorial fragmentation, both in Palestine and the diaspora. Suhad Khatib paints evocative renderings that merge the artist’s personal concerns with the political landscape to produce a completely new world. Najib Joe Hakim’s 1979 photos from Mt. Scopus in Jerusalem recall an irretrievable moment in history before the erection of the settlements that now crowd the edge of the hill and West Bank of the Jordan River. Whether self-taught or formally trained, established or emerging, living in Palestine or born in the diaspora, the artists in this exhibition are rightly preoccupied with land and history, suggesting an abiding need to transform its representation. 

August 17 | 3pm - 5pm: A short performance by Manar Harb sets the stage for a curator and artist-led tour with Kathy Zarur, Zeina Barakeh, Najib Joe Hakim and Suhad Khatib. 

August 24 | 4:30pm – 6pm: Closing reception with a musical performance by Naima Shalhoub. 

Zeina Barakeh is an artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area whose artwork focuses on narratives of war. She has participated in numerous exhibitions and film festivals, including Yinchuan MOCA, China, Newport Art Museum, Rhode Island; PHOTOFAIRS SF; San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art; Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University; Harlem International Film Festival; PULSE New York; UNTITITLED, Miami Beach; KINO im Kulturhaus Spandau, Berlin; Bernstein Gallery, Princeton University. Residency awards include: Perspectives: Here and There, Brodsky Center for Innovative Editions, Rutgers University, New Jersey; and Vermont Studio Center. 

C. Gazaleh is a 2nd generation Palestinian artist based in San Francisco. He uses elements of graffiti, Arabic calligraphy and illustration in artworks about the Palestinian diaspora and liberation. Gazaleh has contributed to several murals in San Francisco, most prominently “Humanity Is the Key,” located at the intersection of Octavia and Market Street in San Francisco. Others include the Edward Said mural at San Francisco State University, the Oakland-Palestine solidarity mural and several Precita Eyes murals. 

Najib Joe Hakim works as a documentary and editorial photographer in San Francisco. Most recently, he was a Political Art Fellow at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and a nominee for the US Artist Fellowship. Hakim’s most recent project, Palestine Diary, exhumes his 1978-79 B&W photographs in Palestine and combines images with excerpts from his contemporary journal to enlighten the roots of the crisis in Palestine today. It currently being shown at the Jerusalem Fund Gallery in Washington D.C. 

Manar A. Harb is a researcher, writer and artist in Oakland. Harb’s work has been exhibited at Slide Space 123, Aggregate Space Gallery, San Francisco Center for the Book and Kearny Street Workshop’s APAture 2018. She presented her research on the language of letters at the College Book Art Association bi-annual conference Lightning in 2016. In 2014, she launched Anonymous Letter Writing, which earned her the Writing and Community Engagement Fellowship from Mills College. Harb holds an MFA in Book Art and Creative Writing at Mills College. 

Yazan Khalili is an architect and a visual artist who lives and works in and out of Palestine. His works have been exhibited in several major exhibitions, hosted by MoMA, New York; the Palestinian Museum, Birzeit, Palestine; Kunstverein Stuttgart, Germany; Shanghai Biennial, China; and Sharjah Biennial, UAE. He holds a BA in Architecture from Birzeit University, an MA from the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmith's College and an MFA from Sandberg Institute, Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam. He is visiting lecturer at Al-Quds Bard College and artistic director of Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre. 

Suhad Khatib is an artist and designer in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her artwork has been included in exhibitions in Montreal, Connecticut, San Francisco and Amman. She is regularly invited to speak, most recently at the Palestine Lives conference in New York, where she discussed art and liberation theology and at Harvard Divinity School where she discussed art in decolonizing Feminism alongside Patricia Hall Collins. In 2014, she spoke on behalf of the Palestine Contingent at the Ferguson October first mobilization. 

Mary Tuma is an artist and designer who works with textiles. Her artworks have been shown at the Cheongju International Craft Biennale, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Crocker Art Museum, Station Museum, Birzeit University Museum, Palestine and Maruki Gallery, Japan. Mention of her work has appeared in Art in America, Contemporary Practices, Dar Al-Hayat, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Counterpunch, NYArts, Mother Jones and The Jordan Star. She holds a BA in Costume/Textile Design from the University of California, Davis, and an MFA from the University of Arizona. She teaches art at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. 

Kathy Zarur is a curator and educator in San Francisco. Her research interests include contemporary art in the Middle East and its diasporas and museum studies. She has curated exhibitions at the San Francisco Arts Commission, Minnesota Street Project, SOMArts and the Museum of the African Diaspora and was assistant curator of the Sharjah Biennial (2011). She has organized conferences hosted by the de Young Museum, San Francisco State University and SFCamerawork. She holds a PhD in art history from the University of Michigan and teaches at colleges throughout the Bay Area. 

INSTITUTE OF advanced UNCERTAINTY is a program of Five Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) based in San Francisco. 

Gallery hours: Tuesdays through Saturdays, 12:30pm to 5:30pm, or  by appointment.