Sahab Museum from Gaza is moving to the Clandestino Festival in Gothenburg. In Filmstudion, the virtual museum is being built with art from Palestinian artists who are currently "in the air" and in Paris.
The vision is to build a physical art museum in Gaza one day, but even in 2021, when the artist collective Hawaf Collective started working on the virtual museum, it was not possible, says Salman Al-Nawati. He is a Palestinian artist from Gaza and one of the founders. After a residency in Paris, he now lives in Swedish Tanumshede.
The artistic leader of the music and culture festival Clandestino, Aleksander Motturi, met him in connection with the visit of the Palestinian writer Adania Shibli to Sweden in the spring and took the opportunity to introduce the two.
In the spring, Sahab Museum has been shown at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. French-Algerian Mohamed Bourouissa, also one of the founders, chose to lift the entire museum into his own exhibition.
In Gothenburg, the imaginary museum will instead move into Filmstudion, among other things, with the help of VR technology. This is part of the festival's art initiative, inspired by the German philosopher Walter Benjamin's notes on "the angel of history".
In the coming days, Sahab Museum will open a new virtual exhibition, "Barra", on the new catamaran of the Art Explora festival, which will travel to different cities around the Mediterranean and receive art audiences. The vernissage will take place in Marseille and feature art made during the ongoing war, says Salman Al-Nawati.
But Sahab Museum is more than just an exhibition space, he explains, it's also a cultural-historical archive in the cloud and above the ruins in Gaza.
Running from July 4-7.
It's primarily a music festival, but also artists and writers such as Johannes Anyuru will participate.
Location: Filmstudion in Gothenburg, plus Culture House in Bergsjön and Tossene Church in Sotenäs.
Among the program highlights is a virtual museum from Gaza showing art by primarily Palestinian artists. The museum was founded by the artist collective Hawaf with others such as Salman Al-Nawati, Mohamed Bourouissa, Mohamed Abusal, and Sondos El-Nakhala.
