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Gaza: Arts of Resilience and Hope in the Midst of Despair

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What is the role of art and artists in an extreme case of violence such as in Gaza, and what can we learn from Gazan artists about hope and resilience? These are the key questions that we explore in this video and the panel that will follow as a continuation of our research on health and violence in Gaza. The form of slow violence in Gaza operated by Israel seems to be forgotten but the people of the Gaza Strip continue to live without free access to the outside world. Years of protracted humanitarian crisis have all but exhausted the resilience of the two million Gazans. In the midst of chaos and despair there remains hope, particularly expressed in Gazan art.

Names of Participants: Dr. Catalina Ortiz DPU, Dr. Hanna Baumann IGP, Mr Muhammad Shehada, Dr Ziad Abu Mustafa, Professor Michelle Pace, Professor Haim Yacobi and Mariam Noaman.

Catalina Ortiz holds a PhD in Urban Planning and Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago as Fulbright scholar. She is an Associate Professor in the Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London. Her research includes the negotiated co-production of space in global south cities around urban design, strategic spatial planning, and urban policy mobility practices. She uses decolonial and critical urban theory through urban knowledge co-production methodologies to study the politics of space production to foster spatial and epistemic justice.

Hanna Baumann [2] (Institute for Global Prosperity, UCL) is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow whose interest lies in urban marginality and contestation. Her current research examines the role of urban infrastructures in the exclusion and integration of refugees in Beirut and Berlin.

Muhammad Shehada is a Palestinian writer from Gaza. He is a columnist at the Forward newspaper, contributing writer to Newsweek, Haaretz, Aljazeera and the New Arab, and Europe Regional Manager at the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.

Michelle Pace is Professor in Global Studies at the Department of Social Sciences and Business, Roskilde University, Denmark. She is also Associate Fellow, Europe Programme, Chatham House, London and Associate Member, Middle East Studies Forum, Deakin University, Australia.

Haim Yacobi (Bartlett Development Planning Unit UCL) is an architect who specialised in critical urban studies. His academic work focuses on colonial geography, architecture and planning politics as well as on urban health.

Ziad Abu Mustafa is a researcher who obtained his PhD in Political Science and International Studies from the University of Birmingham.

Mariam Noaman, Master Student in Global Studies, Social Science Department, Roskilde University, Denmark. (Movie editing and production)

All welcome. Link to join the event will be sent one hour before the event.

This talk forms part of the IAS five-year anniversary festival [5] on the theme of ‘Alternative Epistemologies’.

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