Calendar

This year’s DC Palestinian Film + Arts Festival features a four-day architectural exhibit at the District Architecture Center in Chinatown, operated by AIA|DC.

Schedule of Events

Opening Reception: Keynote w/ Iman Fayyad, Harvard GSD | October 5, 6:30PM; Free; RSVP required; Refreshments provided
Talk with Gaza: 8:00 AM – 11:30 AM (Thursday, Friday) Free, Reserve your 20 min spot online
Performances at the Portal: Daily from 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM, Doors open at 11:30 AM, $10, Tickets required
Conversations across the Diaspora: Daily from 1:30 PM – 3:30 PM, Free, Reserve your 20 min spot online

Reservations for ticketed DAC events can be made at DCPFAF
Reservations for portal conversations can be made at Shared Studios

The exhibition spotlights over a hundred years of Palestinian architecture from historic to contemporary Palestine across the diaspora. Guests will explore the concept of home as an architectural, environmental, communal, and human experience vis-à-vis the Palestinian narrative. Over 9.6 million Palestinians worldwide claim heritage to the same place - the same homeland. Palestine is a place physically inaccessible to most Palestinians, yet it remains a communal identifier that unifies a fragmented population in spite of distance and physical barriers.

In cooperation with Shared Studios, the exhibit centers on an interactive pop-up portal with audio-visual technology. Once inside, visitors have the opportunity to have face-to-face conversations with the Palestinian community in other portals around the world. Guests will have the opportunity to sign up for a 15-minute slot every morning and every afternoon to talk with someone in Gaza, NYC, or Milwaukee. Free reservations are managed through Shared Studios’ website – you are welcome to come alone, with a friend, and for several sessions over the span of the four days. Every day at noon, the portal features collaborative performances between artists in Gaza and DC (tickets required).

Through photographic work, this exhibit also explores the many definitions of home by Palestinians - a people as varied as the diaspora is vast. It is through the process of seeking that we find within ourselves our homes and moments of humanity. Issues of migration, attachment to place, and place-making are relevant not only to the Palestinian people, but to all diaspora populations - including those communities right here in Washington, D.C.

Featured architects and displays

RIWAQ on cultural heritage and historical preservation; UNRWA on refugee and emergency response infrastructure; Senan Abdelqader on rebuilding and modernization; Decolonizing Art + Architecture Residency on experimental design as it pertains to the future of the Palestinian state; and ShamsArd Design Studio on environmentalism, landscape and vernacular architecture.

Sponsors

Spartan Flooring, Mohawk Flooring, Quinn Evans Architects, WISA Solutions

Organized by

DC Palestinian Film + Arts Festival