Abstract My proposal for the forum is informed from a performance I have been working on during the past months. The performance is a collaboration between Murad Hassan, Itamar Shapira and myself. It explores the possibilities of direct activism, especially in the West Bank, specifically in the severe times of violence we are part of. The performance Absent/protective Presence brings together the Palestinian actor Murad Hassan, who lives and works in Israel, with the experience of Protective Presence. Through an encounter with Itamar Shapira, a long-time activist and researcher of direct action in the South Hebron Hills, Murad performs simulations and dialogues drawn from testimonies of activists in the area.
Protective Presence operates in the areas of the Jordan Valley and South Hebron Hills, struggling together with Palestinians for grazing and agricultural lands, against home demolitions, and for the possibility of living in the face of institutional and independent forces acting against them.
Protective Presence is an activist practice, carried out mainly by Jewish and international activists, who stand alongside Palestinians in their struggle and amplify their visibility and actions.
This proposal will study from the performative experience, in theoretical and practical methodologies, how mutual learning and ideological cross pollination can embody the unveiling and darkening of both visible and invisible privileges that exist in the local space here, between the sea and the river.