Berlin – Nablus, Palestine
Moviemiento loves the transcultural exchange and connecting with cultural activists! Together with Arts Hub, a cultural organization from Nablus, West Bank, Moviemiento organized a networking meeting. The overall ideas were to explore how each organization is active in the fields of arts and culture and how local, social and political backgrounds and surroundings as well as dreams and visions shape projects and activities. The organizations also shared ideas on mutual support and a long-term cooperation in the fields of arts and culture but also in non-formal education.
People from Arts Hub came to Berlin and vice versa people from Moviemiento went to Nablus. In both places meetings with local cultural activists and partners took place, as well as the exploring of the cultural scene in each city.
Thanks to various networking options for both organizations the exchange opened many doors and created a lot of input and food for thought for further cooperation.
The first visit
Arts Hub in Berlin
The exchange followed an active and participatory approach to gain a better understanding of each other’s background and motivation, both politically and socially.
For example, being in Berlin members of Arts Hub participated at the two days stop motion workshop “Naturbegegnung mit Trickfilm“ at Spreepark Berlin led by Moviemiento. Arts Hub got a glimpse on how Moviemiento works in the field of non formal education on the topic of transforming spaces into creative places.
Being fascinated by the energy Arts Hub brought to Berlin a public Dabkeh class, a traditional levantine dance, was held by Ibrahim Feno at Tempelhofer Feld.
The second visit
Moviemiento in Nablus
Arts Hub (Salon Al-Fann) is a hub for arts and culture in the city of Nablus in the West Bank (Palestine). It was built by a group of young committed activists, who share their passion for dancing, such as traditional dabkeh, hip hop, contemporary dance as well as circus in order to develop the arts and culture scene in the city. During the networking meeting in Nablus, Moviemiento experienced what it was like to use arts and culture to form creative and empowering spaces within a politically fragile environment.
The difficult conditions became clear right at the beginning: A planned festival from Arts Hub, which was supposed to take place during the visit, had been canceled on a short note as the Islamic fraction of the parliament had spoken out against it. Which in turn led to the government banning the festival because it feared reprisals.
The team visited various organizations like a circus school in Nablus, the British skate project SkatePal and the internationally famous Freedom Theater at the camp in Jenin. The meetings contributed to the networking aspect of the exchange.
Within the visit, Moviemiento got a deeper understanding of the geopolitical situation in Palestine and the significant role civil society as well as cultural and artistic activism has in it.
Supported by (within CCP Synergy):
