@eyebeamnyc
Brooklyn, NY, August 23, 2024 — Today, Eyebeam is proud to announce the “Palestine Futures” initiative led by a group of the organization’s alumni that draws on Eyebeam’s long-standing legacy of handing agency over to its artists. The grant provides support for a cohort of five U.S.-based Palestinian artists, activists, and writers actively engaged in creating Palestinian futures of equity and liberation. Each artist was awarded $12,000 in unrestricted funding to support their work in light of the escalating violence and genocide against the people of Palestine and the devastating acts of scholasticide and cultural erasure that accompany this violence. The Palestine Futures grantees will be featured in a series of interviews conducted by Eyebeam’s Community & Artists Relations Associate, Ruth Gebreyesus, all of which will be available on Eyebeam’s new virtual magazine Feed and Instagram channel.
The Palestine Futures grantees, Randa Jarrar, Dr. Donia Jarrar, Jennifer Jajeh, susan abulhawa, and Susan Muaddi Darraj were selected through a nomination process in succession. The first grantee was selected by the organizing alum, who then passed the nomination process to the grantees themselves; each nominated an additional recipient until five in total were selected and a total of $60,000 was disbursed. This model is adapted from Eyebeam’s Democracy Machine fellowship, which handed the keys of its flagship fellowship over to artists in a radical experiment to unlock artist-led invention in the areas of self-governance, technology, and democracy.
Randa Jarrar, the first awardee, is a queer Palestinian author and performer whose work centers Palestinian experiences and liberation including her 2021 memoir Love Is An Ex-Country and her acclaimed 2016 collection of stories, Him, Me, Muhammad Ali. Most recently, Jarrar has organized with Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG), a coalition of academic and media workers whose campaigns center the complicity of cultural institutions in Zionism and American imperialism.
Nominated by Randa Jarrar, Dr. Donia Jarrar is a first-generation Egyptian-Palestinian-American educator and multi-instrumentalist musician and composer who releases music under the moniker Phonodelica. Dr. Jarrar is celebrated for her distinctive use of field recordings and oral histories in shaping sonic landscapes across various genres. Dr. Jarrar has taught theory and piano at the Edward Said Conservatory of Birzeit University in Ramallah and across refugee camps and cities in the West Bank with the nonprofit organization of Al-Kamandjati.
Nominated by Dr. Jarrar, Jennifer Jajeh is a Palestinian actor, writer, and comedian known for her thought-provoking tragicomic performance, I Heart Hamas And the Other Things I’m Afraid To Tell You, where she invites audiences to navigate the highly politicized nature of being Palestinian. Jajeh’s intimate depictions of Palestinian Identity across multimedia formats have expanded the ways comedians explore the depths of storytelling.
The fourth grantee nominated by Jajeh, susan abulhawa is a Palestinian author, human rights activist, and animal rights advocate. abulhawa is widely known for her 2010 novel Mornings in Jenin, now considered a canon in Palestinian literature. abulhawa is also recognized for her on-the-ground work in covering life in Gaza during the most current iteration of the genocide, while also providing material support for Gaza’s sole animal rescue organization, Sulala Society, founded by Gaza resident Saeed Al Err.
The final grantee nominated by abulhawa, Susan Muaddi Darraj is an award-winning Palestinian author and educator, known for her short story collection including, A Curious Land: Stories from Home (2015) and The Inheritance of Exile (2007), and her new novel Behind You Is The Sea (2024). Her writing is an in-depth survey into the abundant experiences and voices of Palestinians both in their homeland and in exile. Darraj was behind the international campaign #TweetYourThobe that captivated social media in 2019, encouraging Palestinians across the globe to share photographs of their traditional Palestinian robes.
Eyebeam is honored to welcome the five phenomenally-outstanding Palestine Futures grantees into its community of artists, technologists, organizers, and cultural workers. We are also incredibly grateful for the work of the members of our alumni community that initiated and led this project: Zeina Baltagi, Ramsey Nasser, Ingrid Burrington, Tega Brain, and Sam Lavigne. Their joint statement on the project and its importance can be found here.