Our featured artist for the month of October 2024, Jenin artist Khaled Jarrar answers a few of our questions. In his work, Jarrar delves into contemporary power dynamics and how they affect everyday people within their sociocultural context. Employing a diverse array of mediums, including photography, video, installations, films, and performative interventions, Jarrar continually challenges the limits of artistic intervention to provoke social change and awareness.
What have you been obsessed with as an artist over the past few years?
I’ve been looking for new ways and paths in this life. We’ve been under occupation all our lives and we never stop struggling to be free, free in our thought, free in our body, free in our land, sky — even our dreams are occupied. I have been dedicated to finding ways to heal from all the trauma by learning what has been lost, our story, the story of love, the story of solidarity, the story of hospitality. Our story is us and we are the story of the people who have been fighting nonstop since for so long, to make sure that we are not deleted from existence.
Did you find that your work habits or art changed after October 7th?
I was born in a hospital in Jenin which was across the street from the military outpost long before October 7th, and no one talked about why those soldiers were shooting at us in Jenin, or why they kidnap Palestinian women, men, children and even older people. 70% of Palestine was occupied in 1948, and the rest was taken in 1967; since then we’ve witnessed the killing of our people, including several massacres and now the genocide in Gaza. It feels like no one talks about us. The genocide is being livestreamed and we still don’t matter, the world is mostly silent.
Has the extreme dehumanization of Palestinians in Gaza affected your daily life?
What a time to be a public Palestinian artist — a time of surreal dynamics, commodification of our mutilated bodies, dehumanization was nothing new for us, and we had been facing this hate with love and we will keep speaking up against all colonial power and use our leaders’ words, for instance those of Ghassan Kanafani, who wrote:
“They steal your bread, then give you a crumb of it… Then they demand you thank them for their generosity… O their audacity.”
What are you presently working on?
Working on new project entitled Unknown—Olive Oil. You can read more about it here.
Does making art during times of war seem more, or less urgent/important?
The creative worlds — art, film, theater, and so on — are attempting to create spaces of solidarity, representation, visibility, empathy, and bridges to understanding. I truly believe that art has the ability to change hearts and minds like nothing else. And yet, there is an unchecked, creeping imperialist dynamic that I am encountering all too frequently. In some cases this dynamic plays out despite the best of intentions. It’s a dynamic that owes its origins and perpetuation not due to malice, or the failure of individuals but because of a seemingly insurmountable structure.
I’ve been “involved” in the daily life of Jenin (e.g., The Freedom Theatre) since the devastation of 2002 during Intifada 2– including co-producer work in my local public-access cable TV system — and, from far away Hawaii, USA, I have “intense” empathy for the people and land of Jenin…and all of Illegally Occupied Palestine. I thoroughly enjoyed this visit to Mr. Jarrar’s artistry and his so-valuable life!