Peoples Museum Book
Peoples Museum ligger Birzeit – en Palæstinensisk landsby 12 km nord for Ramallah. Her udviklede de danske kunstnergrupper Parfyme og YNKB i samarbejde med Palæstinensiske kunstnere Peoples Museum, støttet af CKU som del af Kulturprogrammet i Palæstina.
Der er bogreception torsdag 24 Maj kl 17 – 20
YNKB, Baldersgade 70 st, tv, 2200 København N
Den svenske kunstteoretiker og kritikker, Professor Gertrud Sandqvists skriver i forordet til bogen:
It might sound odd that a people such as the Palestinian, living in one of the world’s oldest cultures, at a place where three world religions were founded, with an extremely rich history since thousands of years would need another museum. But this is a special museum, created by a group of Danish artists together with their Palestinian colleagues, with and for the people in one village, Birzeit, without any specific selection principles, without any other aim than listening to some individuals and their stories, and together with the people in the village remember the history for this specific place. It is not necessarily a directly political project, although of course many people in the village feel a need to talk about the effects of the Israeli occupation. There is no tendency, no propaganda. We meet the old peace-maker, listen to his story about old christian families, and share his proverbial wisdom, we meet proud car owners, we learn how to make really good bread in a traditional owen, but also the face book youngsters, the bar owner who would rather like to put something up in Ramallah, and women — mainly mothers and wives.
We see an old house being restored, and changed into a local folklore museum, with objects brought and collected from the village. Would one imagine something similar being done in a Danish village, by Palestinian artists? In theory yes, of course. But something of the urgency would not be there. The fact is that the national heritage of Palestine is something that only relatively recently has been investigated and, partly, restored by the famous Palestinian Riwaq organization, which consists architects, archaeologists and hundreds of volunteers. Hundreds of years being part of various empires, and now under a painful occupation, robbed generations of Palestinians of their own history. To build a museum, to collect stories is a peaceful, and meaningful investment in the future for a people. It is an act of hope.
Peoples Museum Book består af tre afsnit: Processen, Arkivet og Historier.
Processen beskriver i ord og billeder historien om Peoples Museums tilblivelse. I afsnittet om arkivet er alle de objekter og kunstværker som beboere I Birzeit har doneret eller lånt til Museet afbildet med navn på giveren og de personlige kommentarer giveren har haft.
Endeligt er der i sidste afsnit 25 interviews med personer fra Birzeit, som giver et billede af dagliglivet i en besat Palæstinensisk landsby.
Peoples Museum findes stadigt og har sin egen bestyrelse i Palæstina og er anerkendt af selvstyrets Indenrigsministerium som et museum i Palæstina.
Peoples Museum er støttet af CKU – Center for Kultur og Udvikling, Den danske Repræsentation i Ramallah og Det Danske Kunstråd.
Peoples Museum Book er på 268 sider med tekst på Engelsk og Arabisk
Udgivet ad Rimal Publications og kan bestilles via forlagets hjemmeside https://www.rimalbooks.com/ , pris 25$ eller ved henvendelse til YNKB for 175 kr.