Professor John Halaka Selected as a PARC 2018-2019 U.S. Research Fellow

Visual arts professor, John Halaka, was awarded a 2018-2019 Palestinian American Research Center (PARC), US Scholar Fellowship to develop the first phase of his project, Vanishing Harvest: Meditations on the End of Palestinian Agriculture.

Vanishing Harvest is a community-based art project that will be developed by Prof. John Halaka, in collaboration with Palestinian subsistence farmers living and working in the West Bank. Halaka’s multi-disciplinary project will utilize photographic essays, video recorded conversations, and drawings to capture, reflect on and present the personal narratives and life experiences of the farmers.

The stories of the farmers combined with the images produced by John Halaka will shed light on a complex, historically successful and once sustainable agriculture tradition--a tradition that is now struggling under the weight of rapidly mounting existential threats.

The PARC Fellowship will enable him to spend 15 weeks in Palestine to observe the spring agricultural cycle. He will return in the fall of 2019 to record the rituals associated with the olive harvest and start phase two of the Vanishing Harvest project.

About Professor John Halaka:

Prof. John Halaka received his Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts from the University of Houston in 1983, and his Bachelor of Arts in Painting and Drawing from Brooklyn College in 1979. Halaka’s artwork investigates personal, social and political conditions of instability caused by physical and psychological dislocation. His recent art projects engaged Palestinian refugee communities in a process of speaking of their personal and cultural histories of displacement, resistance and survival.

Halaka’s artwork and documentary projects have been exhibited nationally and internationally. Selections from his work can be seen on www.johnhalaka.com andwww.sittingcrowproductions.com.