In Conversation: Ancestral Land, Colonialism and Palestinian Resistance.

Land is a common theme in Palestinian art. This connection can be seen in many of the works featured in The Lost Paintings exhibition.

Artists living in Palestine and those from diaspora or refugee communities often explore ideas of home, belonging, and separation from places that are important to them and their families. 

Over time, changes to the landscape have affected both the environment and the communities connected to it. The development and reshaping of land can influence how history is remembered, how places are understood, and how people’s relationships with their surroundings are maintained.  

Settler-colonialism modifies indigenous landscapes and shapes them to its need, obscuring the land’s history and its connection to the people whose lives have been intertwined with it. The reshaping of the landscape is also used, historically and in the present day, as an instrument of dispossession and displacement.

This panel will discuss the connection between colonialism, landscape, and the life landscapes support, whilst highlighting creativity in resistance.

Speakers: Razan AlSalah, Benji Boyadgian, Dr Wassim Ghantous, Yara Kassem Mahajena
Moderator: Dr Muna Dajani

About the speakers

Razan AlSalah

Razan AlSalah is a Palestinian artist and teacher based in Tio’tia:ke/Montreal. Her films work with material aesthetics of the disappearance of indigenous bodies, narratives and histories in colonial image worlds. Her moving images are both ghostly trespasses and seeping ruptures of the colonial image, that function as another border. She thinks of her creative process as a collective recollection in a circle of relations with each other – and the unknown.

Her award-winning films have screened at Cinema Days Palestine, Montreal International Documentary Festival, Singapore, Yebisu, Valdivia, Melbourne, Glasgow and Beirut International, Prismatic Ground, Blackstar, doc Lisboa, FID Marseille, Open City Docs, and Instants Video, among others.

Benji Boyadgian

Benji Boyadgian is a painter and a multi-media artist based in Jerusalem. His works explore themes revolving around perception, memory, territory, environment, architecture and landscape. Boyadgian studied architecture at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris La Villette, specialising in urban sociology in post-conflict areas.

He has been exhibited in group shows at Centro Internacional das Artes José de Guimarães, Portugal; EVA International, Ireland; SAVVY contemporary, Germany; Yerevan Biennial, Armenia; Istanbul Modern, Turkey; Jameel Arts Centre, United Arab Emirates as well as in Palestine, Tunisia, Sweden, and Finland.

Yara Kassem Mahajena

Yara Kassem Mahajena is a Palestinian multidisciplinary artist, lecturer and co-founder of Shahinat Burtuqal, a digital platform promoting Palestinian art. Her work explores trauma with a focus on political trauma and animal resistance in Palestine. She holds BA and MFA degrees from Haifa University, a Community Art certificate from Beit Berl, and a Leadership certificate from Roger Williams University (USA).

Yara has taught at Haifa and Mercy University (NY) and held roles at Givat Haviva, Bezalel Academy and Umm Al-Fahm Museum. She has exhibited and curated internationally and received multiple awards recognizing her artistic achievements.

Dr. Wassim Ghantous

Wassim Ghantous is a senior researcher in political geography at Tampere University. He is a member of the Space and Political Agency (SPARG) and Geographies of Coloniality and Everyday Violence (GOCEP) research groups.

His interdisciplinary research engages critical theory and human and political geographical approaches. His studies include questions of politics, colonialism/decolonisation, violence, surveillance, security/insecurity, and resistance as they play out in the context of Palestine/Israel and beyond.

Dr. Muna Dajani (moderator)

Muna Dajani is a political ecologist and scholar-activist committed to struggles for environmental justice and decolonization in Palestine and the wider SWANA region. She is a Fellow in Environment at the Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science. Her work bridges academia and activism, bringing over fifteen years of engaged fieldwork with communities in Palestine, Jordan, and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

At the heart of her research are the lived experiences of those resisting dispossession and ecological violence. Her scholarship amplifies grassroots knowledges to challenge dominant paradigms of sustainability and development.

Image: Benji Boyadgian, The Fire, 2024

With thanks to