Lecture-performance: Godefroid of Bouillon: The Bastard Son of Antara Bin-Shaddad

A story that jumps through time and across geographies brings the artist and her grandmother in Palestine, together with two well-known European personalities; Godefroid de Bouillon, known as the first king of Jerusalem and the illegitimate son of the famous Arabian poet Antar Bin-Shaddad, and the 16th century Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel. Time collapses as we travel back and forth across millennia—from Jerusalem, to Brussels, to London, and back to Jerusalem.

Following the non-inear hakawati structure of epic story-telling, personalities and images are playfully displaced and re-contextualised in a colonialist history. Using different forms of collage in both the narrative and the images, Hijawi tactfully invites us to look with her at how colonialism is deeply embedded in canonised European artworks.

This performance is part of a larger body of work entitled ‘Chicken Scribbles and the Dove that Looks like a Frog’ which explores the aesthetics of representation in artworks that allude to the political histories of Palestine through various media.

Bio - SAMAH HIJAWI (Kuwait, 1976) is an artist and researcher currently completing her PhD in Art Practice at ULB and the Academie Royale des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles, in Belgium. In her multi-media works, she explores the aesthetics of representation in artworks that allude to the histories of Palestine. Her works have been shown at The Hayward Gallery in London, BOZAR and Beursschouwburg in Brussels, Bureau Europa Maastricht, MoMa and Apex Art in New York and Darat al Funun in Amman, among others. She previously collaborated with Ola El-Khalidi and Diala Khasawneh in directing Makan Art Space (2003-2015), an independent space for contemporary art in Amman. Together with Shuruq Harb and Toleen Touq, she co-curated the platform The River has Two Banks (2012-2017), which was initiated to address the growing distance between Jordan and Palestine through a program of artistic and reflective events presented in different cities.

^{Credits:
Concept and performance: Samah Hijawi | Dramaturgy: Reem Shilleh | Technique: Gregor Van Mulders | Producer: Kunstenwerkplaats Pianofabriek | Co-producers: BOZAR, Chaire Mahmoud Darwich, Kunstenwerkplaats Pianofabriek, Moussem, A. M. Qattan Foundation, KAAP | Coaches: Frederik Le Roy, Sana Ghobbeh and Einat Tuchman. With the support of Vlaamse Gemeenschap, MMAG Foundation, Nadine and De School van Gaasbeek.}