“If I must die You must live” part 2, 12.10 – 7.12 exhibition extended until 22.2 – 2025

“If I must die You must live” deel 2

Refaat Alareer

Refaat Alareer’s house, with him and his family inside, was bombed on 3 December 2023: he did not survive the attack. It is a recurring pattern, the assassinations of Palestinian writers, scientists, poets and artists by the Israeli occupying forces in Palestine. The power and function of poetry in the Arab world is immense. Amidst the violence of destruction and the dominant propaganda legitimising death and violence, domination and extermination, there is the voice of those who resist. Palestinian poets are heroes of resistance; saviours of culture and propagandists of life.
With their domination and violence, even with the use of their literary and artistic instruments, their archaeological and theological vocabulary, the colonial powers have described their own imperial history. In doing so, they prevented – or were blind to – everything and everyone who lived their lives where they alone ruled. Colonial occupiers tend to think that what they “discover” is a paradise intended only for them.
The 20th century saw the emergence of writers in these colonial territories who looked sharply through the imperial narrative and began to record the histories that those in power had allowed to escape. In Latin America, this was Eduardo Galeano in Uruguay, Pablo Neruda in Chile, Naguib Mahfouz in Egypt, Walid Khalidi and Edward Said in Palestine, and in Algeria…

Dance in the Court of Justice, 2024

Works by :

Yoshitomo Nara, Jos van der Sommen, Sliman Mansour, Teuny Tukker

Henk Visch, Refaat Alareer (poem from Gaza)

Henk Visch, Wolfgang Tillmans