Jamal al-Afghani Interview on July 18th - NK
I met with Jamal at the restaurant Ziryab in downtown Ramallah. We had a conversation over beers and coffee. I let him know who I was along with my connection to Georgetown and to the Palestine Poster Project Archive. He knew Dan Walsh and he knew about the PPPA—he mentioned that he purchased a CD of some posters from Dan. However, Jamal has not visited the website much. He did say that he would look at the site and make some suggestions as I asked him to. I also asked him to look at his own special collection on the website and to make recommendations about how we can improve it, what we can add, and what is missing.
Jamal mentioned that he has his own archive—both of his work and some work for other poster artists. He has also established an artist guest house in an area just outside of Ramallah where he invites anyone to stay. Every other Thursday night they have a party with live music and Palestine’s artists come to enjoy the art and the music. He told me that there are some posters in the guest house as well and that I would be welcome to come photograph the posters and the stay in the guesthouse for as long as I would like. Unfortunately I was in Haifa the night of one party and the other night I would have left the country already. Jamal also went to Jericho to work on his current project there so I didn’t get the opportunity to see him after this meeting, though he did call to say hello.
Jamal has an email address-- afghano@hotmail.com. He does not manage this email address, another fellow handles the communication technology for him. However, he told me that this person keeps him informed about his messages and he responds as Jamal asks him to. He mentioned that he would love for you to be in touch again. The reason he has been so unreachable over the past few years is because he has been travelling. He only spends a few months in Palestine at a time. He mostly spent the past few years in Tibet establishing an artist village there. He is also currently establishing artist villages in Nepal, Egypt, and Jericho. The concept behind this artist village is trash recycling: inspiring communities to collect trash and to create art out of it. His other current project is Jericho 10,000 Festival: the celebration of Jericho’s 10,000’s year. Mostly he is working on concepts of the Goddess Anat and making her the mascot of the festival. He is reviving her sculpted image with the communities in Jericho and making her also a part of the art/recycling project by making statues of her out of trash as well.
Jamal kept mentioning that he has a very bad memory. Of the artists I asked him about he is only still in touch with Emad—thought he was unsure where Emad is located at the moment. He thinks Syria. He said that he had his email address and that he would send it our way after we were in touch with him via email. He also said that Emad would for sure know the artist behind the mysterious “W” signature. He also knew the artist but he could not remember, and said that there were two artists with similar signatures—one Iraqi and one Palestinians. Still he could not remember the name of either artist.
Question for Dan: He said that he paid for some CD (I didn’t understand this exactly) but he bought something from you that contained posters and he got a lot of duplicates. He was hoping that he could have another one with less duplicates.
Message to Dan (He sent you this message after the initial interview, when he called me to say he was back in Ramallah. At that point I was preparing to leave Palestine): Thank you Dan for everything. He is working with a filmmaker on a documentary series about folks who have worked in solidarity with Palestinian arts. Next year, after they finish the film they are working on now they would like to do a documentary about you and the PPPA.