X-TALK #33 BY ORAIB TOUKAN

For her talk, Oraib will be reading excerpts from her recent book Sundry Modernism, Materials for a Study of Palestinian Modernism, Sternberg Press (2017). The book is a gesture, a nod, a salutation to, and a critique of, various lines and angles in Palestinian architecture. It’s an anthology of printed matter in and around architecture from the early 40’s until the late 70’s, within the area known as the ‘Occupied Palestinian Territories’. It presents selected photographs from a large corpus of photographs that she informally took over a long period of time and later used as conversation prompts. The book is a provocation on the act of looking, and particularly, reading apolitical forms in political contexts.

About Oraib Toukan:

Oraib Toukan is an artist and Clarendon Scholar at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford. She is visiting tutor at the Ruskin School of Art and the International Academy of Fine Arts in Ramallah, Palestine. Until Fall 2015, she was head of the Arts Division and Media Studies program at Bard College at Al Quds University, Palestine. Recent exhibitions include the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Heidelberger Kunstverein, Qalandia International, The Center for Contemporary Art Glasgow, the Asia Pacific Triennial, the Mori Art Museum, and the 11th Istanbul Biennale. She is author of Sundry Modernism, Materials for a Study of Palestinian Modernism, Sternberg Press (2017).