Origins? Beginnings? Locating a Palestinian Modern Art

A dynamic, nuanced study of twentieth-century Palestinian art requires divestment from both the framework of the origin and the fixation on the Nakba as the locus classicus of Palestinian identity. I will begin by explaining the centrality of the mythical origin of 1948 to the historiography of Palestinian art, linking its prominence to the material concerns of ownership, territorial claims, and cultural legitimacy. Then, I will suggest a theoretical shift from the question of the mythical, passive “origin” to that of the active, secular “beginning,” building on the distinction between the terms as defined by Edward Said. If the origin “centrally dominates all that derives from it,” the beginning’s role is more tentative; it is the first step towards the intentional production of meaning, towards the creation of difference from precedent, and it defies linear trajectories in favor of diffuse and indeterminate outcomes. Finally, I will suggest that the period between the establishment of the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1965 and the Israeli assualt on Beirut in 1982 constitutes one such “beginning,” a generative moment for Palestinian cultural production that resulted in new representational paradigms for conceptualizing “home.” Ultimately, this methodological shift allows us to look beyond the constraints of nationalism to see modern Palestinian art beginning multiply and collectively, as the product of a dynamic relay of information and aesthetics between cultures, continents, political parties, and individuals.