Exhibition opening: Picturing Scholasticide
Join us on May 18 for the opening of Picturing Scholasticide, a travelling multimodal exhibition on the deliberate destruction of educational systems and infrastructures in Gaza. Picturing Scholasticide is an exhibition initiated by staff and students at Leiden University to make visible the social and legal effects of Israel’s destruction of Palestinian institutions of higher education. Developed in partnership with Palestinian photographers and web designers, the exhibition aims to commemorate, build awareness, and support the rebuilding of education institutions in Gaza and across Palestine.
Through photography, testimonies, and a curated selection of additional resources, the exhibition documents the destruction of Gaza’s twelve universities and situates this within the longer history of the onslaught on (scholarly) life in Palestine. In doing so, the project captures the devastation of physical buildings, essential infrastructures, and the human toll on personnel, as well as advocate for educational justice and the critical role of educational rights in Palestinian society.
The opening event starts at 17:00 in room 0.21 of the University Library City Centre. The program includes an introduction to the exhibition, followed by a roundtable and Q&A with Elisa da Vià, Manar Ellethy, Salah Alhaw, and Alessandra Spadaro, moderated by Hayal Akarsu.
The exhibition has previously been shown at Leiden University, the University of Amsterdam, and Radboud University, and will be on display in the main hall of the University Library City Centre from May 18 until the summer.
The Lauch and Exhibition are organized as part of the Contesting Governance priority area Palestine Lab. As a priority area of Contesting Governance, the Lab seeks to foster open and engaged dialogue not only on Palestine but also on the role of academia and our university in relation to relevant systems of power and violence. It promotes engagement with Palestine through an understanding of its ongoing dispossession, displacement, and erasure as part of a settler-colonial project. While the term ‘laboratory’ has often been used to describe how military technologies are tested in Palestine and exported elsewhere, the UU Palestine Lab reclaims the term to reflect on how our academic freedom, scholarly responsibilities, and humanity are tested.
- Start date and time
- End date and time
- Location
- University Library City Centre, room 0.21
- Entrance fee
- Free entry
- Registration
- More information
- Picturing Scholasticide