ARTIST NOTE

Virtual Gallery Through is an immersive digital gallery designed to preserve and restore Palestinian intangible cultural heritage, especially traditional crafts such as pottery, ceramic, and glass-blowing, through virtual space. Traditional Palestinian crafts have cultural and historical value beyond mere objects, and have played a role in connecting urban spaces with Palestinians for many years in cities such as Gaza and Hebron. However, due to constant occupation and war, these cultural crafts and their industries are in danger of disappearing. This virtual gallery was designed as part of a study exploring how traditional Palestinian crafts and urban spaces are connected in this context, and how digital media can be used to preserve them. This project is a form that explores the focal research question that "Can immersive digital media preserve intangible cultural heritage as a form of resistance against erasure by colonial agents?” While traditional preservation methods focus on the protection of physical artifacts, the Gallery Through focused on preserving and transmitting the narrative, considering that Palestinian crafts are deeply connected to the Palestinian urban context, everyday life, and their collective memory.

This practice is based on David Lowenthal’s preservation theory of The Past is a Foreign Country. Lowenthal argues that heritage preservation plays an important role in identifying the identity of nations and communities, and maintaining cultural continuity. Based on this theory, Gallery Through sought to restore cultural continuity by preserving the narratives of traditional Palestinian crafts, seeking ways to communicate them to current and future Palestinian generations. All of the audio-visual elements of this practice were designed through the collection and analysis of archaeologists and Palestinian artisans and digital archival materials in an interdisciplinary way. Specifically, using the Unreal Engine program, Gallery Through was built based on Jerusalem traditional bricks and Palestinian pottery workshops archives. Moreover, designed by applying postcolonial design methodology, Gallery Through broke away from the traditional colonized exhibiting ways and pushed boundaries between exhibits and audiences.

In particular, the traditional Palestinian craftsmanship, its creation process, and sounds of urban spaces reproduced in the gallery serve as an element that highlights the historical connections Palestinians have with cities and lands. This digital preservation and restoration is a form of cultural resistance in response to occupation and looting, functioning as a new way for Palestinians to reclaim their land ownership and deliver them to future generations. In other words, Gallery Through goes beyond mere record preservation, recreating Palestinian cultural independence and their historical roots in the digital space, thereby raising voices of resistance to cultural and historical extinction. Ultimately, Gallery Through is designed to function as a medium for Palestinians to claim their rights to history and culture, and to restore connections to the past and land.