All art is a protest and every work of art protests against some aspect or element of reality. For centuries, artists persistently turned the spotlight towards silenced areas in society and amplified the voices that are not heard. With that, art challenges existing orders while anticipating what is yet to come. Like a constant protest today against yesterday, trying to prevent the replication of reality and even wishing to repair it through alternative propositions.
The 22nd Musrara Mix Festival adds another layer to the examination of protests and forms of protest in art, centering on the Israeli Black Panthers protest that erupted in Musrara neighborhood 50 years ago. Despite the decades that have passed since, it seems that the period’s zeitgeist, conflicts, and cultural, political, and ethnic disparities continue to resonate through the Israeli society. These encounter profound international shifts and challenges, from the global pandemic and the new political-economic reality that emerged from the fragments of the crumbling reality in the “post-truth” and “fake news” era, through ecological disasters, financial crises, and recurring elections in the shadow of lockdowns and the pink protest at Balfour, to the tensions and disillusion in Israel’s mixed cities. These events have brought about a deep rift in the cultural sphere that also impacts questions about the public and the private space.
The festival, which will take place in May 2022, expands the exploration of protests and modes of protest in art, focusing on the impact of technology on defiance as well as art’s response to technology, and to the power and privileges it entails. Protests have a critical role in the political development of countries, but today, in a world of social media, protests do not depend on the physical space and can even undermine the digital medium – which serves as a tool of protest as well as policing and control.
In the spirit of the longing for an equal and critical cultural-social space, this year the festival will be held in the community center and the historical building of the school with live art, performance, and participatory works, generating a re-examination of the physical and virtual space in which we exist. The festival will touch on distinct political issues as well as the most profound aspects of the individual’s subjective identity and its construction, and will feature artists who explore the radical transformations brought about by the interaction between technological progress to culture and society in the language of protest as well as personal expressions.