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In the Name of the Father - curated films by Lara Khaldi & Yazan Khalili

Curator’s Statement

The following exchange of emails took place between Lara Khaldi and Yazan Khalili over the course of three weeks in September while trying to write their curatorial statement. At the end, they decided to present it in this raw format as it allowed a more open discussion and exchange.

Dear Yazan,
It is strange how we keep building those video programmes on intuition, and I keep thinking that we were so set on showing ‘My Father Is Still a Communist’ and building the programme around it, because we have such affinity with this film. This relationship with the missing father, as we've both in a way had this experience of a missing father, for different reasons, but all intermingled, war, politics, to run from a higher father... And there's also Hicham's film ‘Kaeef Ma Yikolu’, produced at the same time... Do you think the revolutions had something to do with suddenly remembering fathers, and our relationships with them? Perhaps all of this is a coincidence... Perhaps the whole curatorial process is a coincidence, but one makes a narrative out of it, and it suddenly becomes intentional?
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Hey Lara...
Your last questions are tricky, because, in a way, they attempt to make us naked… expose us to the reader and viewer… You actually surprised me by asking these questions again, as I remember we had this discussion when we chose the films for the first programme we participated in, we didn't reach a conclusion, but then it was easier, we only had to choose independent Palestinian films, this time we need to have a curatorial intention, and yes we built it around ‘My Father Is Still a Communist’, or at least this film pressed the trigger for the selection process… But the narrative comes as we are looking and choosing the films, as we are combing the programme, making the order, and having this discussion… It is not a coincidence as much as a discovery process, with lots of luck involved... More ...

Biography

Lara Khaldi was born in Jerusalem sometime in the eighties, and received her B.A in archaeology and art history with a minor in English literature in 2005.

Yazan Khalili was born in 1981, and lives and works in and out of Palestine. Yazan Khalili received a degree in architecture from Birzeit University in 2003 and in 2010 graduated with a master’s degree from the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmith’s College, University of London.
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