April 22 marked the grand opening of the first Palestinian museum in the U.S. Tucked into a modern office building along a suburban road not far from downtown New Haven, Connecticut, the Palestine Museum U.S. is the creation of Palestinian-American businessman and entrepreneur Faisal Saleh.
Members of Faisal’s large and prosperous family were among the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians forced out of their homes when the state of Israel was declared on May 14, 1948. Each year, Palestinians commemorate May 15 as the “Nakba,” Arabic for “catastrophe.”
FAISAL SALEH: Really, thinking about what’s going on in the U.S. and around the world, there’s really a vacuum of Palestinian media, particularly when it comes to art and culture and the like. Israel and its friends have many, many museums in many cities in the U.S. and the Palestinians did not have a single museum in North America and South America. So that vacuum really is crying out for some presence, and that’s really why I wanted to take this initiative.
BETWEEN THE LINES: And how did you get the different artists who are exhibited here? Did you have others you decided not to include or did you include any Palestinian artist who found out about you or who you reached out to?
FAISAL SALEH: Well, I began the process of researching Palestinian artists mainly through Facebook, and I began making contact with these artists. And initially, it was difficult to get an artist to agree to exhibit at the museum and send us their artwork kind of sight unseen. However, after awhile, once we got a couple of names under our belt – particularly there’s an artist, a Palestinian artist who lives in New York, who’s very famous, that’s Sa Halaby – I made contacts with her and she came out here and had a lot of questions for me, and after vetting us very thoroughly she said she really liked what we’re doing and thought it was a great idea, and said, “You’ll have three of my paintings on loan to exhibit.” That was a turning point. After that, it became much easier to get artists to send us their work. And after the coverage we’ve had recently on the international media outlets, everybody wants to send us their art now, so we have a huge pipeline of work we’re just waiting to decide on.
It was difficult to decide on which art do you take, which ones you don’t take. And there, I just used my common sense. I look at the pieces and if they looked good to me, I accepted them. If I didn’t like them, I told the artist, “Well, at this point…” It’s hard to tell people that you don’t want to take their art, so it’s heartbreaking sometimes, but it was clear that that art wasn’t of museum grade. People who looked at the museum were amazed and everything looked nice, so I don’t think I did a bad job.
BETWEEN THE LINES: I think I read you quoted as saying at some point that when people in the U.S. when people talk about – most people don’t even use the word Palestine – but when they talk about Palestinians or the West Bank or Gaza, it’s all about politics or fighting and most people in the U.S. have a very one-dimensional view of Palestinians, and that part of your goal was to make the Palestinian people more three-dimensional. Is that right?
FAISAL SALEH: That’s true. The media in the U.S. in particular and the West in general kind of focused on violence and conflict and terrorism and things like that. And they kind of portrayed Palestinians in a negative light, if you will. The average American doesn’t know much about Palestine and Palestinians. They think Palestine is Israel, and they think hummus and falafel are Israeli food. The Palestinian culture has been raped, in our opinion, and we Palestinians are out to reclaim our culture. Falafel is a Palestinian food; it had been a Palestinian food for hundreds of years. We hope that by exhibiting all the Palestinian art and showing the historic photographs, we can provide the American audience with a picture of who the Palestinians are and show they are really human beings like everybody else, and they have the artists and they have people who excel in the arts, the musicians and people who do the crafts and photographers and all of that. And our goal is to change the discourse from the political arena to the cultural, artistic arena.
BETWEEN THE LINES: You said it’s not political, but there’s one big painting in there that seems to be very political. Know which one I’m talking about?
FAISAL SALEH: The Rachel Corrie memorial?
BETWEEN THE LINES: Yeah. I should just say that Rachel Corrie was a young college student in her early 20s who did go to Gaza and basically was run over and killed by a bulldozer when she was defending a family’s home in Gaza. So how did you decide to include that one? It’s probably the biggest one in the whole exhibit, isn’t it?
FAISAL SALEH: It’s a mural. It’s an 18-foot by 8-foot mural. I felt that Rachel Corrie was such a brave, selfless person. You know, why would a young woman like her leave her comfortable life in Olympia, Washington, and go to, like, one of the worst places on earth? And she lost her life in something she believed in. And it was a tragedy. You know, we’re not concerned about whose fault it is or whatever. But we’re concerned about her sacrifice, and the Palestinians honor her, everywhere.
