THE IMAGE THAT WILL NOT GO AWAY
Palestinian Visual Resistance
The Image That Will Not Go Away* is a series of group studies and public event lead by DEMO, in collaboration with DARNA, examining the question of Palestinian self-representation within a Western cultural landscape tied to the Zionist project and the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. Focusing on cinematic practices that address these struggles for self-representation and their restricted circulation in Western cultural systems, the project explores how such artistic expressions expose the colonial logic informing the Western cultural ecosystem and reshape discourses surrounding its ethical and epistemological framework.
Approaching Palestinian self-representation as both an aesthetic and political issue, The Image That Will Not Go Away engages with the challenge of representing extreme violence and dispossession. At the same time, it addresses the colonial logics of Western cultural systems, currently reinforced by censorship and the silencing of Palestinian voices. Acknowledging how these intertwined challenges impede the development of narratives from a Palestinian perspective, which resist being framed within Western colonial paradigms, the project will present and analyse case studies of Palestinian artists and filmmakers who are developing innovative strategies for visual resistance.
In order to open a public debate on strategies for countering the complicity of Western cultural institutions in the genocide of Palestinians, The Image That Will Not Go Away also brings together representatives from international organisations advocating for Palestinians’ right to self-determination and representation. These groups have been actively opposing censorship within the Western cultural landscape, particularly following October 7th. By creating a platform for exchange and collaboration, this initiative aims to strengthen ties within a global network of solidarity and explore different approaches to resisting hegemonic narratives, while amplifying Palestinian voices within contemporary art and culture.
* We borrow the phrase ‘the image that will not go away’ from Edward W. Said’s After The Last Sky (London: Faber and Faber, 1986), 42.
Attend to the restitution↗
This residence has been carried out in collaboration with DARNA
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.