Students, graduates and staff from Central have collaborated to re-stage and transform their projects into a new site-specific performance on the Steps @ Senate House.
Event
‘Spaces of Exception’ - screening and discussion with Malek Rasamny
Event information>
Spaces of Exception (2019, 90 mins) is a documentary film that profiles the terrains of the Indian reservation and the Palestinian refugee camp, ‘spaces of exception’ that have become essential in the struggle for decolonization and indigenous autonomy. Join us for a screening, followed by a discussion with co-director Malek Rasamny.
Image: Dheisheh Refugee Camp, Bethlehem, West Bank, Palestine. From Spaces of Exception (2019), dir. Matt Peterson and Malek Rasamny.
Synopsis of Spaces of Exception
Spaces of Exception is a documentary film that profiles the terrains of the Indian reservation and the Palestinian refugee camp, ‘spaces of exception’ that have become essential in the struggle for decolonization and indigenous autonomy. Shot between 2014 to 2017, Spaces of Exception observes and juxtaposes the communities and struggles of the American Indian reservation and the Palestinian refugee camp. It visits reservations in Arizona, New Mexico, New York, and South Dakota, as well camps in Lebanon and the West Bank, ‘places defined by their historical and spiritual resistance’, in order to ‘understand the conditions for life, community, and sovereignty’. While the histories are distinct, dispossession and loss unite these communities in solidarity, and the alternating stories highlight both their unique tragedies and their revolutionary commonalities. Mostly eschewing archival footage, Spaces of Exception showcases the present, in which each day lived is itself an act of resistance.
The Native and the Refugee Project
Spaces of Exception comes out of the long-term multimedia project The Native and the Refugee. The project has resulted in more than a dozen short films, a book, a radio programme, writings and numerous lectures and workshops. The Native and the Refugee project has been presented in Canada, Denmark, Ecuador, England, France, Guatemala, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Portugal, Syria, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates, within the refugee camps and reservations where the film was shot, and at venues including cinemas, museums and universities. For more information, see: https://thenativeandtherefugee.com/.
Speaker
Malek Rasamny is a documentary filmmaker, researcher and writer. He is currently working on a doctoral research project at Paris Nanterre University concerning the social phenomenon of reincarnation within the Druze community of Lebanon.
This page was last updated on 20 March 2024