By Sarah Carnvek
A new art gallery in the Israeli town of Sakhnin has the Israeli art world talking. The Arab Museum of Contemporary Art and Heritage (AMOCAH) museum is putting this town usually known for its soccer team on the country's art map.
Sakhnin, located in the Lower Galilee, has a population that’s mostly Muslim, with a sizable Christian minority.
"This museum is in the periphery of the periphery," says Israeli artist Avital Bar-Shay, one of the founders of AMOCAH. "It's not just art on display; it's good art of local and international caliber. In the Arab communities, they're longing for a place like this."
"In art, when you create something new you take two parts that normally don't have any connection and you make them into one thing," Belu-Simion Fainaru, a Romanian artist who lives part of the year in Haifa, told an interviewer on
English-language radio station TLV1.FM.
The Arab Museum of Contemporary Art and Heritage has already amassed 2,000 objects related to regional Arab heritage and some 200 contemporary artworks.
Bar-Shay and Fainaru came up with the idea for AMOCAH after running the successful Mediterranean Biennale in the town of 25,000 in 2013. Sakhnin municipality and its mayor, Mazin Ghanayem, jumped aboard the project and helped allot space for the museum's new home in Sakhnin’s Old City.
The museum, say the founders, is meant to draw art lovers from around the country but also to be a source of pride for Sakhnin residents.
“The intention is that the community will have access to it, that art will exist together with the residents and not just for its own sake," Fainaru told the newspaper Haaretz.
It's an art museum covering every genre, including painting, drawing, sculpture, photography and multimedia.
"As artists, it's important for us that we show original and quality art. To show how art can grow from a place. It's also important that there's a connection to the culture. An international language of art with a connection to the local culture," Bar-Shay says.
The museum is launching a residency program with artist Johannes Vogel as its first participant. He will come live in Sakhnin, give workshops and create art works based on his experiences there.
A place for coexistence and dialogue
On December 13, 2014, the doors to the Arab Museum of Contemporary Art and Heritage swung open to the general public.
On display were works of contemporary art by Arab and Jewish artists including the likes of Mohammad Said Kalash, Marina Abramović, Abeer Atalla, Larry Abramson, Jannis Kounellis, Christian Boltansky, Johannes Vogel, Raed Bwayeh, Hermann Nitsch, Hoda Jamal, Mounir Fatmi, Mahmoud Badarneh, Buthaina Abu Melhem, Micha Ullman, Asad Azi, Dani Karavan, Nidal Jabarin, Tamir Lichtenberg, Meirav Heiman, Zuhdi Qadri, Rani Zahrawi and David Wachstein.
AMOCAH displays works by Bashir Borlakov of TurkeyThe founders of AMOCAH stress the museum's role in encouraging dialogue among the varying communities of Israel.
"This museum is an opportunity for Jews and Arabs to meet, for their cultures to meet," says Bar-Shay. "It's a stage for coexistence and dialogue."
"Through art, [we] will bridge the conflicts with an emphasis on multidisciplinary arts, self-respect, and a vision of a better future," reads a press statement announcing the museum's opening.
The museum’s first exhibition was called “Hiwar,” the Arabic word for “dialogue.” It was curated by Sakhnin's Amin Abu Raya and juxtaposes contemporary art and objects of regional Arab heritage.
"The idea is to get to know each other, Jews and Arabs. Each one has fears and preconceived ideas and now they can learn through art and expression about the culture of the other," Fainaru told TLV1.
"These two communities, Arabs and Jews, have to live together because they live in the same place and must try and learn and understand about each other. Contemporary art can be the platform to do this."
“The museum provides a venue for Jews and Arabs to meet. That is the goal," Fainaru tells Haaretz. "Every exhibition or thought creates a meeting between both sides, and this creates dialogue. Art is the meeting platform. All the decisions are made jointly, which is not always easy and shouldn’t be taken for granted.”