'The Minarets of Nablus' by the Syrian artist Adib Fattal.

OPEN CALL

A new sequel of the CITIES EXHIBITION series produced by the Ethnographic and Art Museum - Birzeit University is set this year in the city of Nablus "Between Ebal and Gerzim". The exhibition is curated by Vera Tamari and Yazid Anani. Visual artists are encouraged to submit proposals for contemporary artistic interventions in the city based on the concept of the CITIES EXHIBITION**. Deadline for proposal is May 15th 2011 to be sent via email at bzumuseum@birzeit.edu - subject: NABLUS.

CITIES EXHIBITION

CITIES EXHIBITION is a project that attempts to draw attention to a variety of relationships between people and place and time, keeping the cadence and uniqueness of each city, moving from the past to the present through the narrative of time. The idea of the project is beyond just the stereotypical representations of nostalgia and folklore, it is by itself an attempt to putting in juxtaposition, past and contemporary visual and cultural evidence, not only to affirm the uniqueness of those cities, but to challenge the issues of memory, identity and change as well.

Nablus 'Neapolis', the new city of Vespasian; the Shechem of Abraham and Sara in the biblical land of Canaan; a city that has witnessed its destruction and resurrection twenty two times flanked by its guardians mount Gerzim and Ebal. Nablus of the Abbasids and Ottomans, a Palestinian city that stubbornly withstood wars, resisted occupation, Nablus 'Jabal el Nar', is where present and history coexist; and where cultures intertwine leaving traces of splendor and change on architecture, art, cuisine, and social structure.