Tokyo Palestine Collection

Subversive Film is a cinema research and production collective that aims to cast new light upon historic works related to Palestine and the region, engender support for film preservation, and investigate archival practices and their effects. Among their many projects are the digital reissuing of previously overlooked films, the curating of rare film screening cycles, and the subtitling of rediscovered films. These acts of redistribution examine the potential for presenting the archived material today and invoke (and inevitably challenge) a certain collective memory of the Palestinian liberation struggle. Over the years, this practice led them to conceptualize this as the Imperfect Archive, which proposes to consider the archive as a multiplicity.

The Tokyo Palestine Collection is a multi-faceted archival project that looks closely at an archival collection safeguarded by a Japanese solidarity group in Tokyo. The project explores the production of images and narratives in the framework of international solidarity between Japan and Palestine from the 1960s to the 1980s. The collection includes two dozen 16mm films, tens of Umatic tapes, dozens of posters, and more. The first output of the project is focused on an essay film and several publications. Based on extensive interviews and archival research, the films from the collection become juxtaposed to other archival images from Japan, reclaiming the imaginary of an international solidarity movement.

Tokyo Palestine Collection, which is currently being developed for documenta fifteen in Kassel, will be presented in the format of a conversation.

Biographies

• Subversive Film’s projects have participated in a number of art and film events, including Tokyo Reels (lecture-performance), Doc’s Kingdom, Arcos de Valdevez, Portugal (2019); Shifting Ground, Sharjah Biennial 13 off-site project, Ramallah (2017); Forum Expanded, 67th Berlinale (2017); Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, Japan (2017); Travelling Communiqué, Museum of Yugoslav History, Belgrade, Serbia (2014); and Home Works 6, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut (2013). Subversive Film is an exhibiting lumbung artist of documenta fifteen (2022). Established in 2011, Subversive Film is based between Ramallah and Brussels.

• Lara Khaldi is a cultural worker based in Jerusalem, Palestine. She is an alumna of the De Appel Curatorial Programme, Amsterdam (2013) and the European Graduate School, Switzerland (2015). Recent projects she has co-curated include: School of Intrusions, Educational Platform with Noor Abed, Ramallah (2020); Overtone: On the Politics of Listening, exhibition and symposium, Goethe Institute, Ramallah (2019); Unweaving Narratives: Performance Program, Palestinian Museum, Birzeit (2018); Shifting Ground, satellite project of Sharjah Biennial 13, Ramallah (2017); Desires into Fossils: Monuments Without a State, a series of research exhibitions with Reem Shilleh, Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center, Ramallah (2017); Jerusalem Shows V & VI, Al Ma’mal Art Foundation, Jerusalem (2011 and 2012). Khaldi has taught art history, theory, and exhibition practices at the International Academy of Art Palestine and Dar Al-Kalima University College of Arts and Culture, Bethlehem. Until recently she was Head of the Media Studies Program at Bard Al Quds College, Jerusalem. She has contributed to various art publications, especially around her ongoing research project on the question of museums in crisis. Currently she is part of the artistic team of documenta fifteen (2022).