The performance and installation This is Not a City documents the experiences of three Palestinian women as they move between three cities in occupied Palestine: Nazareth, Haifa, and Jerusalem; navigating  what remains from their Palestinianess and confronting what has been lost. They  realize that they are forced to move within  rigid and blatantly discriminatory spaces - narrow, restrictive, and oppressive for Palestinians. Moving through buses, trains and checkpoints,  it feels as if they are moving within different worlds, yet this  unnatural routine has become their daily reality, as it has become for many other Palestinians.  

The three artists tell us: “This work reflects on our personal experiences within those spaces and on how this routine impacts our understandings of our cities and our existences within them: Are these really cities? Are these really our cities? And how does this affect us, our existence and who we are?   In this work we share what our senses have always perceived and what our notebooks have sometimes documented about these worlds - architecturally, spatially and sensorially.”

This work was documented and developed by artists and architects Abeer Bashtawi, Ghayad Al-Khatib, and Shahd Haitham. It was developed as part of the Projects at The Lab residency program for the year 2024 at Darat al Funun.