The Minister for Culture signs a memorandum of cultural cooperation with the ambassador of the State of Palestine

The Minister for Culture, Ernest Urtasun, and the Ambassador of the State of Palestine to Spain, Husni Abdel Wahed, during the event held at the National Library of Spain

Within the framework of the celebration of Palestinian Culture Day, the Minister for Culture, Ernest Urtasun, and the Ambassador of the State of Palestine in Spain, Husni Abdel Wahed, signed a memorandum of understanding on cultural cooperation at the National Library of Spain.

The document envisages expanding and promoting actions between the two countries in the fields of culture and art, including the exchange of cultural visits, conferences and talks; the promotion of artistic co-production for children and children's literature; cooperation in specialised exhibitions, cinema, music, performing arts and theatre; the exchange of knowledge between institutions and organisations for the safeguarding of tangible and intangible cultural heritage; and cooperation in the field of literature and libraries.

Precisely in this area, the memorandum specifies the intention to strengthen ties between the National Library of Spain and the National Library of Palestine, which have already identified common fields of cooperation, in terms of cultural policies, librarianship or bibliography, as well as the exchange of books, the improvement of the training of their professionals or the development of digital technologies.

'Culture for Peace. Spain-Palestine'

With regard to the commitment to work on the joint organisation of a multidisciplinary cultural programme between the two countries, the agreement has already been put into action in the form of Culture for Peace. Spain-Palestine'., a cultural programme that will be taking place between March and May, in line with one of the strategic axes of Mondiacult Spain 2025, the UNESCO conference on culture that will take place at the end of September in Barcelona.

Following the signing of the memorandum, the Minister for Culture and the ambassador of the State of Palestine attended the programme's inaugural event in the auditorium of the National Library of Spain: a tribute to Palestinian culture entitled 'Palestine. Land. History and People'. At the round table, journalist Teresa Aranguren and film director Pablo Llorca discussed the human side of Palestinian society and its historical and socio-cultural context. The conversation was accompanied by a cultural proposal, featuring poetry, music and dance.

The Voice Revealed: Palestinian Literature and Translation' is the next activity, which will be held on 21 March at the Círculo de Bellas Artes de Madrid-Casa Europa. Ediciones del Oriente y del Mediterráneo offers a journey through Palestinian literature translated into Spanish and its voices, through a conversation between translator Ignacio Gutiérrez de Terán, journalists Teresa Aranguren and Razan Malash, and editor Inmaculada Jiménez Morell.

From 27 March to 25 May, Casa Árabe will be presenting 'Cómic Palestino: Voces propias, Grito Colectivo', a temporary exhibition curated by Mohamed Sabaaneh and Pedro Rojo Pérez. The exhibition brings together different Palestinian artists, whose graphic work rejects the dominant discourse on Palestine by altering colonial representations and providing a different perspective.

On 9 April, the Reina Sofía National Art Center Museum will host the activity 'Tentacular Alliances and Solidarity Networks', organised by the Museo Tentacular team, aimed at Palestinian refugees and organised by the Jerusalem Spanish-Palestinian Community Association. This visit will focus on the possibilities of creating strategic alliances of support and solidarity through the artistic, curatorial and cultural work of 'TEJA. Network of Cultural Venues in Support of Emergency Situations', of which the museum is a member. The tour will include a visit to the collection and, specifically, Picasso's 'Guernica', as a symbol of resistance and the search for peace, led by the mediators of the Escuela de Mediación Situada (School of Situated Mediation), which promotes Museo Situado.

The National Museum of Decorative Arts, a state museum of the Ministry of Culture, is organising a colloquium on 29 April entitled 'Stitch by stitch. Dialogue around Tatreez and the Palestinian imaginary'. Dedicated to traditional Palestinian embroidery, which UNESCO declared an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2021, it will feature Spanish-Palestinian artist Maysun Cheikh Ali Mediavilla and the designer Laura Martínez del Pozo (of the firm PeSeta), to bring together different perspectives on the history and symbolic value of this popular art, traditionally practised by women, which has become a reflection of the culture, identity and resistance of the Palestinian people.

Another of the State Museums, the National Museum of Archaeology, is holding a conference on 7 May entitled 'Excavating in Palestine is more than archaeology: the Tell El-Far'A project (West Bank)'. Professor Juan Luis Montero Fenollós will present how the Universidade da Coruña, in collaboration with the Universidade Nova de Lisboa and the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, launched an international project in Tell el-Far'a, near Nablus, between 2017 and 2022. In addition to bringing to light new archaeological and chronological data on the Iron Age (10th century BC) in the region, this initiative contributed to two educational cooperation initiatives aimed at women and schoolchildren: Archaeology for women' and 'Being an archaeologist for a day'.

Filmoteca Española, an organisation of the Ministry of Culture in charge of the preservation, research, documentation and dissemination of film heritage, joins 'Culture for Peace. Spain-Palestine' with a documentary film programme on Kamal Aljfari, which will take place from 7 to 10 May. The institution's screening room, the Cine Doré, in Madrid, in collaboration with DocumentaMadrid, is dedicating a retrospective to the Palestinian filmmaker, whose work focuses on portraying the Palestinian reality and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through different perspectives, where archive and memory play a central role. The programme, which will be attended by the director, will screen key titles from his filmography, screened at renowned international festivals such as Berlin and Locarno.

Gastronomy will be the focus of the activity proposed by the National Museum of Anthropology from 10 to 24 May, with the workshop 'The Flavours of a People. Tasting workshop on Palestinian cuisine'. Delivered by Kufiya. Palestinian Cuisine, not only aims to showcase some of the culinary knowledge of this people and their most representative dishes, but also the customs, celebrations, influences and cooking utensils that form part of the collective imaginary of Palestinian gastronomy.

Melodías y ritmos de Palestina: muestra de músicas y danzas folclóricas' (Melodies and rhythms of Palestine: a sample of folk music and dance) will be the programme activity hosted by the Museo del Traje. CIPE on 13 May. Coinciding with the week in which Nakba Day is commemorated, this exhibition, produced in collaboration with the Watani Group, aims to offer an introduction to Palestinian folk dances such as the dabke, that were declared as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2023. The activity, which will be accompanied by a musical performance, aims to inform the public about the origins of this dance and its social value today.

And finally, Casa Árabe will close the programme on 27 May with 'From the Nakba to the theatre'. The dramaturgy of Ismail Khalidi, born in Beirut to Palestinian parents and raised in Chicago, which traces the legacy of the Palestinian Nakba over the last century through plays such as 'Tennis in Nablus' (2010), and which also touches on other disasters around the world. In conversation with actor Samy Khalil and actress Beatriz Mbula, who will also participate in a dramatised reading, the playwright will reflect on the process of playwriting and the staging of cultural resistance in contexts of occupation, invasion and exile.

Non official translation