Palestinian Museum Planned in Washington DC

Written by Dan Lieberman, Alternativeinsight

An American group wants to build a museum in the U.S. nation’s capital to commemorate and publicize the Palestinian refugee story. The group has an IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign underway which ends 01 April 2015 to raise funds for the opening exhibit for the museum, “Reclaiming the Lost Future“. This exhibit will be located in the Festival Center, 1640 Columbia Road Northwest, Washington, DC. The objective is to build momentum for creating the full museum. The exhibit will be free and open to the public, running from 12-27 June 2015.

The opening exhibit in June will feature three segments featuring work from Palestinian refugees, other eye witness testimonies, documentaries, stories and writings from the region that tell the Palestinian story of loss and resilience:

• Photography which will include historical photos before the period of 1948 and photos of refugees leaving their lands and villages and others from present day life.
• The second segment will be painting from artists who are still living in refugee camps to this day allowing them to tell their own personal stories and what it feels and looks like to live in a refugee camp.
• The third segment will be oral history, interviews with refugees and documentaries about the Nakba.

“Nakba” is the arabic word for “catastrophe” and will be part of the name of the museum: “Nakba Museum of memory and Hope in Washington DC“. The catastrophe referred to is the displacement from their homes of about 2/3 of the Palestinian residents in what is now Israel 1946-48. Many of the displaced and their descendants still live as refugees today.

References and further reading:

• Nakba Museum Project of Memory and Hope (IndieGoGo) Includes crowdfunding page.

• Palestinian Nationalism (Alternative Insight)