Pictured above: A Home Lives Inside Me, by Wael Abu Yabes, 2013 (Credit: Museum of the Palestinian People)
October 1 – 14, 2017
10 a.m. – 7 p.m., 7 days a week
Exhibition at Nazareth College
Lorette Wilmot Library Lobby
4245 East Avenue, Rochester, NY, 14618
More info: www.mpp-dc.org/traveling-exhibitions
The new traveling exhibition from the Museum of the Palestinian People, Bethlehem Beyond the Wall, invites viewers to see a familiar place from a new point of view. Everyone recognizes Bethlehem as the birthplace of Jesus, few know the city has a rich modern culture.
Today the area including Bethlehem and its surrounding villages is home to 100,000 people, the site of three refugee camps, and four generations of refugees. Since 2002, the city has been divided by the Wall erected by the state of Israel throughout the West Bank.
The constant state of struggle against a succession of occupying powers – from the Ottoman Empire to the state of Israel today – has produced a refrain common to all Palestinian people: To Exist is to Resist.
Bethlehem Beyond the Wall seeks to move beyond both myth and politics to show Bethlehem from the point of view of the men, women and children who live here. The exhibition spans the 1880s through the present, and includes photographs, photojournalism, family snapshots, oral history interviews, and original paintings from artists who grew up in Dheisheh, Palestine’s largest refugee camp.
These young artists turn the walls that surround them into bold celebrations of history, heroes, and expressions of defiance executed with a mix of humor, bravery, sincerity and optimism.
On view for 2 weeks only, October 1 – 14, 2017.
Bethlehem Beyond the Wall is a related community event which is separate from the Witness Palestine Film Festival.