Artist Oraib Toukan presents an informal register of modernist Palestinianarchitecture—an assemblage of images and stories collected from 2013 to 2015 in the cities of Nablus, Ramallah, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Jericho.
Using her photographs as conversation prompts with various residents, historians, and architects, Toukan places the anecdotes collected thereby into political and historical context, weaving together narrative and critique. Sundry Modernism sets out to be a gesture, a nod, a salutation to, and a critique of, the lines and angles of Palestinian modernism. It is a provocation on the act of looking, and, in particular, it is a proposal for reading apolitical forms in politicized contexts.
Published following the artist's participation at the 5th Riwaq Biennale, Ramallah, Palestine, from June 1st, 2014, to June 30, 2016.
Oraib Toukan (born 1977 in Boston, lives and works in New York) is a transdisciplinary artist (photography, video, text, installation) and Clarendon Scholar at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford.
