Palestine after Palestine: New sites for the Palestinian Museum of Natural History and Humankind Departments

Overview

Khalil Rabah’s practice has long been concerned with the relationship between art and institutions. He has helped shape Al Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art in Jerusalem, the Riwaq Biennial in Ramallah and Ashkal Alwan’s Home Workspace Program in Beirut. In 2003, Rabah founded The Palestinian Museum of Natural History and Humankind to ‘provoke curiosity and deepen our understanding of natural and cultural worlds’. In an attempt to create a historical record for Palestine, Rabah appropriates the aesthetic of the Western European museum and its capacity to produce meaning.

Palestine after Palestine: New sites for the Palestinian Museum of Natural History and Humankind Departments (2017) continues Rabah’s endeavour through the creation of an entirely new place, which ‘rests nowhere while waiting for our return’. In this iteration of the museum, the artist draws on the resilience of sites and symbols that exist in spite of their contested states of being. Re-envisioning architectural planning practices and museological language of display, the artist has created fact-based presentations wherein visitors inhabit representational space. To these ends, the foundational site is The Lowest Point on Earth Memorial Park, which features the Earth and the Solar System Department. Gaza Zoo Sculpture Garden forms the structure site, housing the Geology and Paleontology Department. Area C Fields of Gold has been selected as the museum’s enclosure site and includes the Botanical Department. Here, the artist posits the museum as medium, artwork, world and consciousness.

This project was part of Sharjah Biennial 13.