Chicken Scribbles and the Dove that Looks Like a Frog

In an interview with Mhanna Durra, a painter based in Jordan, he described the effects that political events in Palestine had on the practice of painting as, “People would paint a dove, and the dove would look like a frog… and they would call it my homeland”. This lecture performance by Samah Hijawi takes the duality embedded within the collapse of two creatures, two symbols -the dove and the frog- as an entry point to explore representation and symbols in politically engaged art. This piece will navigate through the absurdities that lie between utopia and reality, art and activism, and the transformation of image making into the production of symbols.