Traction

The public program of RB5 is situated firmly within the cultural landscape of Palestine, in that it is structured as a series of responses to local events and programs. Possible examples might range from Qalandiya International, to the curriculum at the International Academy of Art Palestine, to the Home Workspace Program in Beirut, to the Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest) and others more. Responses will be polemical or supportive, discreet or rowdy, simplistic or subtle. In doing so, Traction will resort to panels, roundtables, lectures, translations, documentations, interior decorating, reading groups, barbecues, TV dinners, boycotts, artist commissions – or anything else that proves useful. Traction also addresses the Biennale as a structure in its own right. It revisits RB history by critically revisiting previous initiatives and re-inviting previous participants. And it persistently asks what you can do with a biennale that you cannot do with anything else. In sum, Traction aims to push RB5 to fulfill its specific potential, well beyond that of some complicated group show that briefly hogs the limelight every other year.