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Paper short abstract

This research examines the creation of cultural institutions in Jerusalem as prefigurative enclaves. Through ethnographic fieldwork and drawing on the theory of prefigurative politics, I trace how the institutions work to imagine and enact a shared future through art and culture.

Paper long abstract

Alongside the city’s conservative cultural sites—its theatres, museums, and religious spaces—Jerusalem is also known for festivals and site-specific performances. Cultural institutions and social organizations create in different ways their notion and imagination of a shared city. This includes the presentation and collaborations with artists from different national and religious backgrounds.

Grounded in the theory of prefigurative politics, which emphasizes collective practices as sites for enacting alternative futures (Gordon, 2018; Jeffrey & Dyson, 2021), the paper draws on in-depth interviews, participant observation, and textual analysis. It traces the artistic and administrative dilemmas involved in curating and sustaining cultural institutions in Jerusalem, focusing on discrepancies in power relations, management roles, budgeting practices, language use, and the articulation of the institution’s vision.

The paper asks how cultural institutions seek to envision the future through artistic practice. What defines a shared—or contested—space in a settler-colonial context? And how do Palestinians and Jewish-Israelis attempt to create, negotiate, and contain a common artistic language under conditions of structural inequality?