Luisa Gandolfo

The union of art and conflict has endured down the centuries, yielding a Janus-faced offspring that gazes both to the past through memory and to the future through aspiration. Two halves of one whole, it encompasses the memory of what was or could have been, providing a utopia to be celebrated or mourned. Prior to 1948 – the birth of Israel, the loss of Palestine, an-Nakbah– Palestinian and Israeli art utilised religious and pastoral motifs that represented the homeland, old and new. After 1948, the two schools reflected on memory, conflict and the land, polemically touching upon loss and gain, sacrifice and security. More recently, Palestinian and Israeli art has converged seeking peace, critical reflection and an acknowledgement of the impact 65 years of unrest has borne on both sides. Amidst the unrest identity is redefined: collective memories renegotiated, historical narratives challenged, and temporal and physical space is subject to Foucauldian heterotopias and heterochronies.

Building on my 2010 paper, ‘Representations of Conflict: Images of War, Resistance, and Identity in Palestinian Art,’ published in Radical History Review, the study will encompass the multiple mediums through which memory, trauma and identity are expressed: formal and informal art forms, comics, cartoons and film. Utilizing the theories of Clifford Geertz, Michel Foucault and Maurice Halbwachs, as well as the discourse of trauma and memory of Michael Rothberg, Susannah Radstone, Dominick LaCapra and Luisa Passerini, the study will explore representations of the Holocaust, an-Nakbah, nationalism, the Other, collective memory, conflict, gender, and religious and national identity, while interviews will be conducted with Palestinian and Israeli artists to gauge the role of identity and memory in their works. In a land of dual narratives, histories and aspirations, the socialization of memory through culture permeates not only Israeli and Palestinian society in Israel, but also the communities outside the land and region. The study will conclude with an analysis of the role of art in the promotion of peace through contemporary collaborative projects that advocate the acknowledgment of trauma and loss as an integral first step towards reconciliation in Palestine-Israel.

While the existing corpus bears foci on the ‘art of resistance’ in Palestine/Israel, the exploration of the expression of memory, trauma and identity through art and popular culture is limited, the core texts comprising Israeli and Palestinian Postcards: Presentations of National Self by Tim Jon Semmerling (2004), Palestinian Art by Gannit Ankori (2006) and Palestinian Art: From 1850 to the Present by Kamal Boullata (2009). Accordingly, upon completion the study will be submitted for publication, with a view to enhance the existing body of literature on art, trauma, memory and identity not only in the Middle East, but in alternative post-conflict environments.