TEXT2SPEECH: Dor Guez

TEXT2SPEECH is a friendly and informal facilitated reading group that aims to provide a platform for broad discussion around recent contemporary art theory. No prior knowledge of the subject is required, but an interest in contributing to debate always enriches the sessions. The group is targeted at the widest possible public, but may be attractive to students and recent graduates who seek an incentive to read new material with others, also offering an opportunity to meet like-minded people.

For our fifth meeting, we will discuss a text by HG Masters: No Occupation Without Representation: Artists in Palestine (2011). The text looks at the practices of a number of contemporary Palestinian artists, whose work often produces responses to the Israeli occupation.

Looking at the work of Emily Jacir, Khaled Hourani, Decolonising Architecture and Jumana Emil Abboud among others, the text considers how documentary-based work reveals the ongoing adversity facing Palestinians today. The work of Dor Guez addresses the complex slippages around cultural identity in the region. By considering how other artists approach similar questions, this text may help to contextualise elements of the exhibition for those who are unfamiliar with the work.

As a secondary text, you may wish to read Rethinking National Archives in Colonial Countries and Zones of Conflict: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and Israel's National Photography Archives as a Case Study by Rona Sela (2014). This text looks carefully at the Zionist photography archives, key source material for Guez, as a site of documented violence. The images themselves are seen to portray violence in the absence of Palestinian people from the supposedly documentary images of pre-occupation villages.

Both texts consider how images and archives can be manipulated to construct narratives based on varying perspectives and political agendas.

See Primary Reading

See Secondary Reading

This reading group has been programmed to respond to Dor Guez: The Sick Man of Europe, on display at the ICA from 3 Feb – 12 April 2015.

Event initiated by Student Forum members Jane Scarth and Kelise Franclemont.