Commune: Shadows Walking Over the Sea

Name: Commune: Shadows Walking Over the Sea
Start: 2025-01-16T12:00:00+01:00
End: 2025-01-16T19:00:00+01:00
Location: Keysers gate 1, 0165 Oslo, Norway

Schedule

Thu Jan 16 2025 at 12:00 pm to 07:00 pm

UTC+01:00

Location

Keysers gate 1, 0165 Oslo, Norway | Oslo, OS

A film screening of 10 works in support of Palestine, curated and organised by Irmgard Emmelhainz and Nora Adwan.

As the occupation of the Palestinian territories reaches over 75 years, the assault against Gaza continues. The genocide has claimed more than 47,000 confirmed victims, a large number of them children, and has led to 1.7 million people displaced, uncountable wounded and the total destruction of the Gaza Strip’s infrastructure. The attacks are spreading through the region with thousands of victims in Lebanon, while the genocide, urbicide and ecocide continues to be livestreamed on our phones. We must keep talking about Palestine.
In Gaza, people are dying of intentional starvation as governments close their ears to screams for ceasefire. Amplifying the voices of Palestinians is an absolute necessity. In screening this programme of video art from and about Palestine we ask: How can we speak of the ongoing atrocities? How do we offer an image beyond sensationalism? How do we continue resistance and establish solidarity with those suffering the unthinkable?
The films will be screened on a loop from 16 to 19 January 2025 during UKS’ opening hours. A special screening of Vibrations from Gaza, Electrical Gaza and We Would Be Freer is presented on Saturday 18 January at 2pm and 4pm with a conversation between Irmgard Emmelhainz and Nora Adwan.

Programme
Children Without Childhood (1972), Khadijeh Habashneh, 21’
The film revolves around the life of orphans of Tall Azaatar Martyrs. Through the lives of these children, the film shows the sufferings that Palestinian children endure in diaspora camps and under the Israeli occupation.
Vibrations from Gaza (2023), Rehab Nazzal, 16’
A glimpse into the experience of Deaf children in the colonised and confined coastal territory of Gaza.
I Signed the Petition (2019), Mahdi Fleifel, 10’
A conversation between two friends about the effectiveness and implications of publicly supporting the cultural boycott of Israel, offering a glimpse of what it is to be Palestinian in today’s world.
Canada Park (2020), Razan AlSalah, 8’
An experimental video poem exploring the politics of dis/appearance of Palestine as narrativised, mapped and imaged in Google Streetview and early 20th-century colonial landscape photography of the ‘Holy Land’.
Scenes of the Occupation from Gaza (1973), Mustafa Abu Ali, 14’
A rare film by the legendary filmmaker Mustafa Abu Ali, one of the founders of the Palestine Film Unit, the first filmic arm of the Palestinian revolution.
Ecocide in Gaza (2024), Forensic Architecture, 7 25’
An investigation of Land Day in Palestine, examining the systematic targeting of orchards and greenhouses by Israeli forces since October 2023.
Electrical Gaza (2015), Rosalind Nashashibi, 18’
Nashashibi presents Gaza under a spell; isolated, suspended in time, difficult to access and highly charged.
When Things Occur (2016), Oraib Toukan, 28’
The film is based on Skype conversations with Gaza inhabitants who were behind the images that were transmitted from screen to screen in the summer of 2014. It asks how the gaze gets channelled within the digital realm, and how empathy travels.
We Would Be Freer (2023), Rana Nazzal Hamadeh, 9’
A short film reflecting on the relationship between native plants and colonised peoples. Through story and knowledge sharing, the film looks at the sumac plant as a medicine, a spice, a dye and more.
Offing (2021), Oraib Toukan, 28’
An exploration into the way images enter our consciousness, framed by the shores of Gaza.

About the organizers
Irmgard Emmelhainz is a global scholar, writer and professor based in Anahuac Valley (Mexico City). Her work about film, the Palestine question, art, culture and neoliberalism has been translated into over a dozen languages and she has presented it at an array of international venues including the Universidad Distrital in Bogotá, SVA in New York, University of California in San Diego and the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Porto.
Nora Adwan is an artist who lives and works in Bergen. She often works in close collaboration with other practitioners, in visual art, performing arts, social sciences and music. Her works have been shown at Astrup Fearnley Museet (Oslo), SAVVY Contemporary (Berlin), e-flux Video Platform, Lydgalleriet (Bergen), Hordaland Kunstsenter (Bergen) and elsewhere.
The screening is presented in collaboration with Hordaland Kunstsenter. It is supported by Oslo Municipality, Fritt Ord, Bergen Municipality and Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts (BEK). The programme will be screened at Hordaland Kunstsenter in Bergen on Saturday 25 January in collaboration with BEK.