The First Page: To See In The Dark
THE FIRST PAGE
To See In The Dark.
Palestine and Visual Activism Since October 7
by Nicholas Mirzoeff
7 January 2025
The First Page presents the first page of books that are launched as part of the IAS Book Launch Programme. On 16 January 2025, Nicholas Mirzoeff will launch his book To See In the Dark. Palestine and Visual Activism Since October 7, an exploration and analysis of how the videos and photos, shared on social media by young people in Gaza to document their struggle, enabled a profound switch in public opinion and led to the global uprising against genocide.
Introduction:
“Palestine Is the World”
On March 28, 2024, feminist activist and thinker Silvia Federici told a packed house in New York City: “Palestine is the world.”1 She had said this before, yet her words landed differently in the wake of Hamas’ attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent onslaught by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Gaza. As Federici’s words reverberated intensely around the great hall at Performance Space on First Avenue, they were repeated by every other speaker there. I still see the effect that these words have on people when I’ve quoted them.
There are two key inflections in the phrase “Palestine is the world”: to think Palestine globally; and to see it in an anti-racist, decolonial, and feminist framework. To see Palestine from the “outside” is not to speak for Palestinians but to associate with them in the global solidarity movement that has become a form of intifada (uprising) in its own right.
Speaking in Paris that same March, feminist
philosopher Judith Butler noted how politics have realigned: “Feminism, queer mobilization, trans mobilization have to all be in solidarity with Palestine now, because we all suffer from forms of state and regulatory violence that makes our lives unlivable or makes us have to fight for our lives.”2
NICHOLAS MIRZOEFF is Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University and a visual activist, working at the intersection of politics, race and global/visual culture. He published two books in 2023: White Sight: Visual Politics and Practices of Whiteness (MIT Press) and the third edition of An Introduction to Visual Culture (Routledge). A frequent blogger and writer, his work has appeared in The Nation, the New York Times, Frieze, the Guardian, and the Los Angeles Review of Books.
To See In the Dark. Palestine and Visual Activism Since October 7 is published by Pluto Press. The IAS Book Launch will take place on 16 January 2025 at the Institute of Advanced Studies. More information.
Lead Image: David Monje via Unsplash.
Categories