“THE MAP IS NOT THE TERRITORY”* PARALLEL PATHS—PALESTINIANS, NATIVE AMERICANS, IRISH

a touring art exhibition

Press Release

For Immediate Release               

Contact:

Jennifer Heath, 303-444-1886, baksunarts@aol.com,

Dagmar Painter   703-973-6768 (c), dpainter@thejerusalemfund.org , http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/ht/d/sp/i/9242/pid/9242

The Jerusalem Fund Gallery Al-Quds in Washington, D.C. was the first stop for a five-year traveling art exhibition, “The Map is Not the Territory,” which looks at relationships and commonalities in Palestinian, Native American, and Irish experiences of invasion, occupation, and colonization – not as novelty or polemic, but as history and current events.

Thirty-nine contemporary artists – most of them Palestinian, Native American, and Irish – explore the profound specific and unusual intersections between the three cultures with original paintings, photographs, prints, drawings, artist books, and films. They consider such topics as conflict, resistance, land, food, diaspora, identity, and persistence.

Participants include emerging, as well as internationally renowned artists, such as Jaune Quick-to-See Smith – member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation of Montana, whose work is featured in prestigious museum collections worldwide – Rita Duffy — one of Ireland’s leading artists, whose work has appeared in, among others, London’s Tate Modern – and Hani Zurob – Paris-based Palestinian painter from Gaza Palestinian painter from Gaza, listed as one of The Huffington Post’s “10 international artists to watch in 2013.”

“The Map is Not the Territory” — co-curated by Jennifer Heath and Dagmar Painter (see bios below) — will travel throughout the United States and abroad through 2018.

For further information, contact Jennifer Heath, 303-444-1886, baksunarts@aol.com or Dagmar Painter, 703-973-6768 (c), dpainter@thejerusalemfund.org. Photos available on request.

Jennifer Heath founded Baksun Books & Arts in 1992 as a small press and independent curatorial project, dedicated to de-commodifying the word and to creating visual arts exhibitions that address issues of social and environmental justice. Baksun’s traveling exhibitions include, among others, Black Velvet: The Art We Love to Hate; The Veil: Visible & Invisible Spaces, http://www.jenniferheath.com/theveil/, and Water, Water Everywhere: Paean to a Vanishing Resource, http://waterwatereverywhere-artshow.com/.

Heath is the author/editor of eleven books, including SuperColón: Admiral of the Ocean Sea (illustrated by Kristine Smock); On the Edge of Dream: The Women of Celtic Myth and Legend (Penguin, 1998), The Scimitar and the Veil: Extraordinary Women of Islam (Paulist Press, 2004), The Veil: Women Writers on its History, Lore, and Politics (University of California Press, 2008), Land of the Unconquerable: The Contemporary Lives of Afghan Women (with Ashraf Zahedi, University of California Press, 2011), Children of Afghanistan: The Path to Peace (with Ashraf Zahedi, University of Texas Press, forthcoming), and El Repelente (Or the Anti-Nuke Antics of Anabela). She is currently at work on two environmental and human rights photo exhibitions and a new book about some of the consequences of occupation. She recently completed The Jewel and the Ember: Love Stories of the Ancient Middle East.

Dagmar Painter  is  the founder  and  curator of the Jerusalem Fund Gallery Al Quds, the cultural program of The Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development, which is Washington D.C.’s only full-time art gallery featuring the work of contemporary artists whose art centers on issues of the Arab and Islamic worlds,  with a special emphasis on Palestinian art. She has lived and worked in the Arab world for more than 12 years and has traveled extensively in the Islamic world for more than 30.

In Washington, she previously established and ran the art gallery of the Embassy of Tunisia. She also directed Gallery Patina, a non-profit gallery of the National Council on Aging, which was featured on NBC’s Today Show. In 2012, she was chosen as an Advisory Review Panelist for the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities Grants Panel. In Cairo, Egypt, she curated exhibitions of Egyptian and American artists; in Tunisia she developed a cooperative designing and marketing crafts for local artisans.

She has written and lectured extensively in the United States and abroad on cross-cultural and arts issues, at such venues as the Textile Museum in Washington D.C., and Meridian House International.  She also taught seminars on Middle Eastern textiles at the University of Tunis and the Centre D’Etudes Maghrebines, as well as classes at the National Museums of Lagos, Nigeria and Bangkok, Thailand. Selected publications include Arts in the Islamic World, Ornament, Cairo Today, Focus on Pakistan, The Herald, India Today, Arts in Embassies, A Practical Guide to Cairo and Savior: Tunis. To view current and past exhibitions, consult www.thejerusalemfund.org/gallery.