Film Screening and Artist Talk with Motaz Al-Habbash

Welcome to a screening of the short film The Donkey of October 7th, followed by a conversation between artist Bjørn Venø and filmmaker, artist and producer Motaz Al-Habbash.

Before the screening, Al-Habbash will give a brief introduction to the film and talk about the background to the project and the idea behind it. The event offers a unique opportunity to experience the film in conversation with the artist behind it, and to gain a deeper insight into the artistic and human experiences that underpin the work.

After the screening, Venø and Al-Habbash will meet for a conversation about what it means to create art under extreme and challenging conditions. Taking the film as a starting point, Al-Habbash will share his experiences of making films in Gaza today and reflect on how the war and living conditions have affected his artistic practice. The conversation will also open up reflections on art as testimony, resistance and human resilience.

The event is held in connection with two current exhibitions at the museum, de:HUMANIZE and Frida Rusti “I Paint in Dreams”. Although the exhibitions differ in expression and subject matter, they complement each other by raising questions about identity, belonging and encounters between different cultures. These are also central themes in Motaz Al-Habbash’s artistic practice, and the conversation will offer an expanded perspective on issues that are also explored in the exhibitions.

The conversation will be held in Norwegian.

Motaz Al-Habbash is a Palestinian artist, filmmaker, producer and curator based in Norway, and is currently a fellow at Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart. Through his artistic practice, he explores questions related to identity, displacement and the search for a home in exile. Habbash has initiated a number of different projects, including the art and cultural platform It Is Hard to Be an Arab (Oslo, 2017) and Her og der, a programme supporting artists who have recently arrived in Norway. He creates meeting places across cultures and opportunities for young artists.

Bjørn Venø(b. 1979, lives and works on Venøy in Stad municipality) is an artist working with photography, video, performance art, writing, drawing and music. Failure, identity, gender and metaphysics are explored through free association, intuition and the characteristics of the fool. Venø holds a Master’s degree in Photography from the Royal College of Art in London. His work is held in the museum archives of the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, USA, and Museo Palazzo Riso, Palermo, Italy.