OPEN CALL FOR ARTISTS The Map is Not the Territory

Between 30 and 40 images will be chosen. Whether prints, photographs, drawings, paintings, or other forms, work must be on paper no larger than 16”x20” and unframed, unmatted (art will be hung with clips or magnets). A limited number of video artworks will also be considered. DVDs must be compatible with broadcast formats used in the United States.

Please submit entries by JPG attachment to co-curators Jennifer Heath, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), and Dagmar Painter, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Include a short bio and an artist statement related to the work. DVD submissions may be posted on Vimeo.

Final deadline for submissions is January 15, 2013. Subject heading for all correspondence should be “MAP.”

Native Americans, Palestinians, and the Irish have many profound connections and commonalities. A few brief examples: struggles against occupation, oppression, and colonization; starvation, disease, exposure, and forced migrations; historical trauma yet survival against all odds; rebellions (including hunger strikes, such as that of Bobbie Sands and Khader Adnan); as many Native Americans have been imprisoned on “reservations,” essentially concentration camps, many Palestinians suffer the same fate. Mobility for the Irish on their own soil was also restricted during the English occupation; Native Americans and Irish have often intermarried; in the mid-20th century, a group of Palestinians were transported to New Mexico and have since intermarried with the Navajo, who were sent to the area from their original lands in the 1860s with Mescalero Apaches on what has come to be called the Long Walk; in 1743, Mary (aka Molly) Jemison was born aboard a ship heading from Ireland to the colonies, where, when she was 12, she was captured by the Seneca. Later, she refused to be “liberated” and became a skilled and famous negotiator on behalf of the tribes; during the Irish Hunger in the 19th century, the Choctaw people, themselves well-acquainted with famine, sent $750 to Ireland, and in 1992, the Irish repaid them with great ceremony; the Irish are among the leaders in the Gaza Flotilla movement, which set out in 2010 to break the Israeli blockade, and they have long been involved in other aspects of the Palestinian resistance.

For The Map is Not the Territory, artists are asked to consider these and other historical and contemporary links. Art that is accepted will be due at The Jerusalem Fund Gallery no later than August 18, 2013. With questions and for further information, contact Jennifer Heath, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

The Jerusalem Fund Gallery, curated and directed by Dagmar Painter, is the cultural program of The Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development, located in Washington, DC. The Gallery showcases the rich culture, art and national heritage of the Palestinian people, with an additional emphasis on the work of contemporary artists whose art centers on issues of the Arab and Islamic worlds. The Gallery hosts bi-monthly exhibits of fine art and/or photography, a summer film screening series, evening musical performances, and an annual souk and olive harvest celebration.

Baksun Books & Arts was founded by Jennifer Heath in 1992 as a small press and independent curatorial project, dedicated to de-commodifying the word and to creating visual arts exhibitions that address issues of social and environmental justice.