Sea of Stories: Voyages of the Palestinian Archives
talkThe story of the archives of the Palestinian national movement reveals a narrative of exile and fragmentation that reflects the Palestinian experience itself.
Building on archival and ethnographic research, “Sea of Stories” attempts to reconstruct the journeys of these archives across the Mediterranean, connecting locations including Beirut, Haifa, Algeria, Cyprus and Italy.
The project explores how much of these archives has been lost, why the remaining fragments are yet to be repatriated, and the ramifications of an archival absence on Palestinian narratives of past, present and future.
This short talk is based on a 2016 exhibit co-curated with Ahmad Barclay, titled “Sea of Stories: Voyages of the Palestinian Archives”, exhibited in the context of Qalandia International (Qi)’s third edition ‘This Sea is Mine’.
About the guestsHana Sleiman is a Lecturer in Modern Middle Eastern History at the University of Edinburgh. She researches the writing of history in the Levant, with a focus on archive building and record keeping in the twentieth century
Genre: Documentary, Experimental, Historical, Archives
Year of Release: 2022
Original Language(s): Japanese, Arabic, English