Seeds of Resistance: Eco-political Struggles in the Levant maps traditions of land-based resistance and alternative ecological and political visions emerging from Palestine, Lebanon, and the broader Levant. Central to the project is an inquiry into how the moving image both documents and (re)activates the revolutionary potential embedded in these visions.
Seeds of Resistance draws inspiration from the alternative social island of the Arab Development Society (ADS), as presented in Al-Mashrou’, an ongoing documentary project by Nadi Abusaada and Shuruq Harb. The film delves into the legacies of Palestinian futurity and self-sufficiency cultivated by ADS—a utopian experiment in land reclamation and social reform, offering fertile ground for rethinking ecological and political sovereignty in Palestine today.
In parallel, the artists engage with the works of filmmakers from the Levant, whose explorations of land practices bring critical insights to the Palestinian struggle against Israeli settler-colonialism. Their films challenge the binary between documentation and intervention, treating the moving image as a co-creator of alternative worlds. By focusing on how communities reclaim, cultivate, and resist, these artists present models for imagining otherwise—producing a visual language that speaks not only to present realities but also to possible futures. In this sense, their works operate as “imagining machines,” generating utopian possibilities even as they document existing struggles.
The residency will culminate in a multi-faceted program. A performance-lecture will weave together threads of research and practice, followed by screenings and discussions with the filmmakers that probe the relationship between the moving image, land, and revolution. DEMO will also host a series of workshops and reading group sessions throughout the residency, exploring themes emerging from our research and engaging with local Palestinian organizations such as Giovani Palestinesi, as well as artists and activists. These discussions will culminate in a public roundtable, where participants can share insights and outcomes while engaging the audience in a broader dialogue about the ongoing Palestinian struggle.
By incorporating various formats into our public restitution event, we aim to deepen understanding of the Palestinian struggle against Israeli colonialism and contribute to the ongoing discourse on colonialism, resistance, and the futurities they engender.
DEMO Moving Image Experimental Politics is a curatorial platform exploring the aesthetic and political potentialities of the moving image. DEMO regularly presents experimental films concerning subaltern conditions and alternative modes of coexistence, both online and nomadically.
Lilly Markaki, PhD, is a writer, curator and lecturer, whose areas of study and practice are Art, Aesthetics and Visual Culture, Critical Theory, Media Studies, Postcolonial Theory and Black Studies. They currently hold a post as Lecturer in Race and Culture in Film and Media in the Department of Media Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London. Adopting an interdisciplinary, transversal theoretical approach, their research investigates material and speculative aesthetic practices, placing particular emphasis on questions that relate to art’s world-making (and unwordling) potentialities.
Felice Moramarco is a writer and curator, founding director of DEMO Moving Image Experimental Politics. His practice and research focuses on rethinking art’s agency in light of the current cultural, technological, and political paradigms shifts, exploring the possibility of artistic practice to operate critically and configure new realities. Felice Moramarco holds a MA in Philosophy and a MFA in Curating, and has held teaching and research position in various international academic institutions such as Goldsmiths University of London, Nordland School of Arts and Film in Norway, University of Prague, University of West Bohemia, Ithaca College, and Academy of Arts in Berlin.