Paper short abstract:

Festivals in Jerusalem’s Old City rattle sociopolitical power dynamics and encourage exclusion. Focusing on the Jerusalem Light Festival (2009–2019), I use interviews, media, and performative analysis to demonstrate how performance art both shapes and is shaped by a contested public space.

Paper long abstract:

“Territoriality is settler colonialism’s specific, irreducible element,” determines Wolfe (2006), pointing toward the importance of spatiality and public space in settler-colonial projects. Systems of infrastructure embedded within the public sphere are widely researched in the settler-colonial context, yet the cultural infrastructure is rarely acknowledged. This paper will address the use of large-scale artistic events in the Old City of Jerusalem, which serve as focal points for internal and international discourse concerning socio-political power dynamics in Palestine.

Over the past two decades, as part of its touristic activity, the Old City has hosted dozens of music, theatre, and performance art festivals, such as the Jerusalem Light Festival (JLF). Israeli municipal institutions developed these mass events to showcase the city’s ancient history with a welcoming international character. From its inception in 2009 until 2019, the JLF attracted tens of thousands of local and global visitors. It offered illuminated pathways within and around the Old City, surrounded by light installations, projections, lit sculptures, and light-decorated performers. Yet local Palestinian residents’ participation in the festivals was not always voluntary, collaborative, or consensual. These festivals often symbolise domination, occupation, and repression in public and private spaces (Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 2016).

This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork, social media, and performative analysis of selected exhibits. It delves into the intricacies of artistic events in a contested public space and asks, what is the role of performative art events in conflict zones? How do large-scale artistic events shape power dynamics in Jerusalem’s public space?