“My own understandings of images were amplified in the aftermaths of several prior disproportionate onslaughts on Palestinians residing in the Israeli-besieged Gaza Strip. Through the overall Palestinian historic experience of violence, I learned that visibility does not presuppose anything. The Palestinian struggle is painfully observable, glaringly visible, and yet it always feels like it cannot be seen. Over time I conditioned myself to find meaning in the lexicon of the Arabic language on conscience and images. I dove into pictures to look—no longer for damning evidence of injustice, but for meaning in how we come to know things.”
– Oraib Toukan, Twenty-One Sunsets
Featuring a screening of two short films of Oraib Toukan, Via Dolorosa (2021) and Offing (2021), followed by a conversation with Joanne Nucho, Kristine Khouri, and Randa Jarrar, this program focuses on Palestinian cultural production and the tension that Toukan explores between the hypervisibility and invisibilizing of the Palestinian experience.
This event is free and open to the public. Presented in connection with the Oxy Arts exhibition Invisibility: Powers & Perils, and in partnership with the Occidental College chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.
Image credit: Oraib Toukan, Via Dolorosa, 2021. Image study in a single-channel video (color, sound). Courtesy the artist
