Return of the Soul: the Nakbah Project
By Scottish artist Jane Frere
Three
thousand Palestinian figurines, each representing a Palestinian
refugee will go on display at The Khalid Shoman Foundation
– Darat al Funun starting October 11th. This extraordinary
work – known as Return of Souls -- is part of an international
artistic project exploring and documenting the history of
Palestine during the late 1940’s and aims at shedding
light on this area of human history, which has been over decades
neglected.
The Nakbah project, largely sponsored by the Palestinian Welfare
Association, was led and co-produced with Scottish artist
Jane Frere. The artwork is a multi-dimensional installation
of around 3000 wax figures. Suspended in the air by clear
nylon thread, the figures are positioned on a raked angle
across the space, giving the elusion of depth and motion representing
the departure of Palestinian in the 1948 exodus. Sound, video
and scripted testimonies will escort the figures and give
them identity, referring to individuals forced to flee their
homes in a state of fear and panic.
The process of production was through young Palestinian artists,
trained by artist Jane Frere who then conducted a series of
educational workshops in refugee camps, in Palestine and the
region. The workshops targeted refugee youths and enabled
them to creatively express their sense of loss, to explore
their heritage and identity and to connect with other Palestinian
refugees through an exhibition that will travel worldwide.
The overall purpose is to create an awareness of the Palestinian
displacement in a non-didactic, non-political way through
artistic expression.
A great team effort was invested in this project. It has given
the work weight and credibility reflecting a vital degree
of engagement with the cause. The emphasis is on cross cultural
collaboration and creative exchange at a time when the international
community has increasingly isolated Palestine and the Middle
East has already gone beyond crisis point.
In collaboration with cultural organization the exhibition
will travel around the Arab countries, Europe and worldwide.
Premiering in Palestine, it will later travel to the United
Kingdom to be featured in the internationally significant
Edinburgh Art Festival. This participation is imperative since
this festival is one of the world’s most important and
foremost cultural events, and will thus give the exhibition
a wider recognition, and create opportunities for exhibiting
in other spaces and galleries in the world.
This project is co-produced by the artist and Palestinian
Art Court.
Associate sponsors: Shams Theater and Al-Jana (The Arab Resource
Center for Popular Arts).
About the Artist
Scottish artist Jane Frere lived for many years in Greece
where she began her career as a painter and theatre designer.
Frere thereafter trained at Central St Martin’s College
of Art and Design and completed her post-graduate studies
at the Slade School of Art in London where she was awarded
the Leslie Hurry prize. Jane Frere has undertaken commissions
as a theatrical set and costume designer in both the UK and
Greece. She has also worked as an international theatre producer,
taking theatre companies mostly from Eastern Europe and Iran
to the Edinburgh Festival and to other destinations world-wide.
Frere taught courses on costume design for theatre and film
at the prestigious Arts Institute at Bournemouth for a number
of years as well.
Integrating a multiplicity of disciplines and media, including
sculpture, sound and film, Jane Frere’s current artistic
work is experimental. Frere became immersed in the theme of
the Palestinian exodus of 1948, An Nakbah, in 2004. Her first
video installation to deal with the topic was presented at
the Maski Theatre Festival in Poland in 2006.
Over the past two years, Jane Frere has exclusively devoted
herself to the execution of The Nakbah Project which materialized
from a residency at The Palestinian Art Court - al Hoash in
September 2007.
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