Moving towards Home: Art for Palestine in New York City 1989 & 2024

04.30 – 05.21.2024
Opening Reception: Tuesday, April 30 6-8pm
Public program: Thursday, May 9 6-8pm

Curated by Jenna Hamed & Amy Kahng


In this moment of record-breaking global uprisings in response to the ongoing genocide and destruction in Gaza, Moving towards Home: Art for Palestine in New York City in 1989 & 2024 draws connections between the historic solidarity building amongst artists during the First Intifada and the ongoing efforts today to build a cultural front for Palestinian liberation.  Thirty-five years ago, artists Yong Soon Min and Shirin Neshat curated a group exhibition, Homeland: A Palestinian Quest, as an organized response to the first Intifada taking place in Palestine, during the critical year of 1989. Presented at the artist-run space Minor Injury (1985-89) in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Homeland offered a selection of responses by New York-based artists to the resistance movement against Israeli occupation. Revisiting the original exhibition from our present-day vantage point, Moving towards Home historicizes and critically reinterprets this local history of artists engaging with organized efforts for Third World solidarity, and more specifically the struggle for Palestinian liberation. It likewise underlines the critical space that alternative galleries, like Minor Injury, offered, not only for immigrant and working class artists to exhibit work, but also for an unrestricted engagement with issues that were institutionally taboo. The exhibition includes art and ephemera by the original participants alongside a new selection of artists of Palestinian descent, most of whom live or have worked in New York City. Exhibited artists include Min, Neshat, and Betty Kano, representing original Homeland participants, as well as Kamal Boullata, Haifa Bint Kadi, Fares Rizk, and Xaytun Ennasr.



 
*Moving towards Home references June Jordan’s 1982 poem of the same name.
“Cultural front” has been popularized by the activist organization, Writers Against the War on Gaza.




All photos courtesy of Subtitled NYC, New York