This event centers on the video work, New Jerusalem, created by Israeli artist Tali Keren and currently featured in the ISCP exhibition, Paperwork: Administrative Practice in Contemporary Art. Keren, speaking via Skype, will be joined by Palestinian writer and artist Hakim Bishara and Palestinian scholar Dr. Lana Tatour who will respond, resist, and speak about the systems of power addressed in New Jerusalem, and in particular about the way these systems impact the lives of Palestinians.

New Jerusalem was both a musical performance and subsequent video installation. The performance took place in Jerusalem’s City Hall, during the City Council Assembly in 2015. The work examines Jerusalem’s twenty-first century municipal plan which was never legally validated, yet serves as binding policy. Keren commissioned a cantor to sing ideologically-charged clauses of the plan, focussing on the occupied Palestinian Territories known as East Jerusalem. These territories, which Palestinians consider to be their capital, were annexed by Israel in 1967. While this discussion is geo-specific, it resonates with the spread of nationalism and ethno-supremacy across the globe.

Hakim Bishara is a writer, artist, and curator based in Brooklyn, New York. He is a staff writer at the online art magazine Hyperallergic and co-director of Soloway Gallery in Brooklyn.

Tali Keren is a media artist whose work investigates the formation of ideology, violence, and political identity. Keren has exhibited work at Eyebeam, New York City; Goethe-Institut New York; and Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, among others. Keren was a resident at ISCP in 2019.

Lana Tatour is a scholar whose research focuses on indigenous resistance to settler colonialism. She is the recipient of the Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Postdoctoral Award, given by the Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University. She completed a Ph.D. in Politics at the University of Warwick in 2017.

This program is supported, in part, by Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant; Greenwich Collection Ltd.; Hartfield Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF); and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.