Over the course of two months, Natasha Gasparian, recipient of Darat al Funun’s 2025/2026 Fellowship for Graduate Studies in Modern and Contemporary Arab Art, will present a series of discussions emerging from her research into the art and visual culture of the Palestinian struggle and the wider artistic and intellectual currents that developed around it.
Across these discussions, a recurrent set of questions is addressed: How do we write art history, and how do we inherit these histories and the aspirations that shaped them?
Talk
The Settler Spectacle and the Sun of Liberation
Tuesday 10 November 2026 | 6:30 PM | Beit al Beiruti
This talk begins with the image itself, tracing the sun as a recurring motif across the visual and literary culture of the Palestinian struggle. It considers how artists used realism not simply to represent political reality, but to imagine its transformation.
The talk is in English.
To register please fill in the form here.
Talk
The Anti-Colonial Avant-Garde: Towards a New Sensibility
Tuesday 15 December 2026 | 6:30 PM | Beit al Beiruti
This talk examines what Gasparian describes as a region-wide anti-colonial avant-garde that emerged after the June 1967 War, as artists and intellectuals developed new forms within a changing political landscape, with Palestine as a central horizon. Revisiting the idea of the New Sensibility (al-ḥassāsiyya al-jadīda), it asks how these movements are understood and what it means to inherit a movement whose political aspirations were never realised.
The talk is in English.
To register please fill in the form here.
Guided Tour
Afterlives of the Struggle
Saturday 19 December 2026 | 6:30 PM | Beit al Beiruti
A guided walk and discussion around selected works from the Khalid Shoman Collection produced in relation to Palestine, currently on view at Darat al Funun. The discussion considers what it means to encounter and inherit these works in the present.
The tour will be conducted in English. Seats are limited.
To register, please fill in the form here.