Featuring work on themes of tradition, memory, and survival, the South West Pavilion at the Venice Biennale showcases photography, sculpture, and performance, all expressing steadfast resistance through art. Meanwhile, Dar Jacir – a historic house turned art hub in Bethlehem – keeps Palestinian culture alive, even in times of struggle.
“Since October 7th,” says Ayoub, the taxi driver who picked me up right outside of the checkpoint on the Palestinian side of the wall, “tourists have completely left the city, with the war, no one comes here any longer”. It doesn’t take long to realise this is no overstatement. The city is almost completely empty, moving at a seemingly unnaturally slow pace.
Dar Jacir is just few kilometers away from the old town. A 19th century family home, originally built in the late 1880’s by al Mukhtar Yusuf Jacir, since 2014 it has been transformed into Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research by Emily, Annemarie and Yusuf Nasri Jacir. Since then, as they explain, it has been «an experimental learning hub for the Bethlehem community and beyond – a place to ask questions, exchange ideas, to dream and to grapple with our contemporary situation», including educational, cultural, and agricultural activities.
Although Bethlehem is emptier and slower than usual, despite – and maybe because of – all the recent suffering the city and its people have endured, the atmosphere at Dar Jacir is always vibrating. From the traditional olive harvest to new international residencies, every occasion becomes an excuse for deeper, meaningful artistic research and practice.
A practice that leads and connects Dar Jacir to a place that might be more familiar – almost 3000 kilometers away, just behind Ponte dell’Accademia, in busy-as-always Venice. As part of the 2024 Biennale Arte’s external exhibitions, in a small alley just across the bridge, you will find the South West Bank Pavilion, organized by Artists + Allies x Hebron. A square, large room, showcasing works realized both in Dar Jacir and in the West Bank as a whole.
According to curator Jonathan Turner, “the intent is to look at process-based artistic practice being produced by Palestinian artists and allies in the southern West Bank, an area which is often culturally over-looked”. The works, however, have much to do especially with the current political and social situation: “our exhibition”, Turner explains, “is particularly focused on collectives and a multi-faceted approach, from photographs and videos documenting aspects of daily life and resilience against a background of conflict, to performance projects which find their voice as they develop. It plots change over time in a shifting landscape. The artworks, publications, moving images, soundworks and sculptures clearly reveal the strength and value of inventiveness, propositive thought and open research in the current climate”.
In the space of a room, the exhibition succeeds in bringing together and alive an incredible variety of Palestinian culture and traditions in the West Bank. A gigantic print of a black and white olive tree immediately catches the eye: it is part of the Anchor in the Landscape series by photographer Adam Broomberg. The black-and-white olive tree, a symbol of Palestinian tradition and attachment to the land, roughly natural-size, almost seems to be standing in front of the viewers and confronting them. Here is the heritage, the history, the wisdom, it seems to be saying, encouraging visitors, while offering its image in every detail, to consider its fragility too.
With her Dough ball and The Distance of Death from my Hands to my Mouth Shayma Hamad invites us to think about the relationship between life, death, food and tradition. The Distance of Death from my Hands to my Mouth recipe booklet mimics the relational aesthetic of death food rituals through a performative relationship with the act of digging in Bethlehem. Thus, dough, symbolizing food, becomes a way to pray and wish – preparing bread, a ritual in itself.
During her residency at Dar Jacir, Vivien Sansour worked with crops, planting and harvesting while reflecting on memory. She designed and planted an entire terrace at Dar Jacir with mloukheyeh, one of Palestine’s staple meals that represents comfort and warmth, trying to find a way to reclaim home, preserve memory and the connection with the land and the fruit it gives, and so often takes away.
Walking in Magazzino Gallery at Palazzo Polignac is a way to suspend time, forget place, abandon concepts – just to find them again, transformed into art with simplicity, fiercely protected, in the face of that clearly perceptible fragility that concerns us all. It then becomes natural to think of art practice itself as a stubborn crop, or perhaps an olive tree in the middle of the occupied land, perhaps attacked, as it so often happens, but absolutely unwilling to surrender – stubbornly resisting until freedom is achieved. A freedom that cannot but live through the land, the dough, the memory of gestures.
As the 2024 Biennale Arte comes to an end, passing through the South West Bank Pavilion, or further investigating realities like Dar Jacir and Artists + Allies x Hebron, can serve as a reminder to keep the lights on – on both the West Bank area and the artworks that are currently being born amidst the suffering and the limitations imposed by the Israeli occupation. After all, resisting is what art is for.
LINK
- TINA DION - October 2, 2026
- Laila Ajjawi: “Something a girl was not supposed to do” - June 19, 2026
- The Art Biennale is alive and well - May 22, 2026
