Thinking Palestine Through Paper

About this event

Thinking Palestine Through Paper is an evening symposium + community paper-kneading workshop and reception. The event is an extension of a recent issue of Hand Papermaking journal ( "Palestine on Paper," Winter 2025), guest edited by MassArt Associate Professor Nisa Ari, which positions the two title terms— Palestine and paper —as equals in order to think through historic and current Palestinian experience through the lens of paper and to rethink paper through Palestine. Commonly presumed to be a benign or even beneficial medium for the preservation and circulation of ideas, paper is remarkably volatile within the Palestinian context and carries elements of danger, loss, and pain within its porous strata.

The symposium will feature six of the journal's contributors (Alessandra Amin, Wafa Ghnaim, Thayer Hastings, Clara Reynen, Michelle Samour, and Rachel Winter) in conversation with Boston-area scholars, artists, curators, librarians, and papermakers. The symposium will be followed by a community paper-kneading workshop led by artist Clara Reynen in conjunction with her artwork The Identified Death Toll of Palestinians in Gaza, One Year Later (2024 – ongoing), on view in MassArt's Design and Media Center from Nov. 17 - Dec. 5, 2026.