Quoz Arts Fest 2024 | Palestine: A Musical Story

Titled ‘Palestine: A Musical Story’, the listening nook invites visitors of Qouz Arts Fest to explore the Palestinian narrative through an auditory experience of hand-picked songs.

Painting pictures of the array of thoughts and emotions experienced by the Palestinian people, in the context of the Palestinian struggle, the nook provides a journey through the stories told in the music and lyrics of the curated playlist.

By scanning the QR codes at the nook, visitors are transported through key events and occurrences in the Palestinian narrative between 1982 and 2023.

The curators have chosen 2-4 tracks to embody the selected turning point, and give listeners an insight into Palestine and the Palestinian people’s minds and hearts during those times.

This project is an extension of the curators efforts to highlight #MusicFromPalestine on Instagram (a hashtag with less than 100 posts on the platform that has been continuously censored during the 2023 War on Gaza)

About The Curators:

Shadi Zaqtan

Palestinian singer-songwriter and guitarist, Shadi Zaqtan (@shadizaqtan on Instagram), is renowned in the underground music scene in Palestine and the Arab World. Known for his poetic vocabulary, inspired by a family of poets and artists along with his own life experiences, Shadi’s unique musical style integrates every-day stories from Palestine with masterful guitar tunes and lyrical authenticity.

Following a well-received release of his first album titled “'An Balad” (“About A Country”) in 2010 in collaboration with musician Imad Sayrafi, Zaqtan went on to release his second album with Sayrafi in 2013 " Ghanni 'Ala Al Hagiz " (“Sing At The Checkpoint”). The latter was followed by more collaborative works with leading Belgian artists Tomas Noel and Wouter Vandenabeele in “The City Songs” (2017).

Reed Khulusi

Reed (@reedeilrium on Instagram) is a Creative Communications Consultant, performing Flow Artist and a Flow State advocate, instructor and speaker based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Originally from Maykop, in The Adyghe Republic, Reed was born in Aleppo, Syria and brought up between KSA & UAE. A multi- lingual ‘Third-Culture-Individual’ she has found her calling in connecting the dots that make-up the collective human experience, primarily through artistic modes of self-expression.

Combining her education in International Relations, Positive Psychology and Cultural Studies, with a love for stories, folk traditions and the transfer of cultures through the movement of people across the planet, Reed has found her Flow through dance, movement and the performing arts.