Al-Ma‘mal Foundation for Contemporary Art

Notes

Al-Ma‘mal is a nonprofit organization in the Old City that promotes, instigates, disseminates, and facilitates the making of art. Founded in 1997, it seeks to raise public awareness and understanding of contemporary art and creative practice by hosting exhibitions and events, film screenings, artists’ talks, public readings, live music, performances, an artist-in-residence program, and art workshops. 

In 2013, al-Ma‘mal moved into a building that was formerly a family-owned tile factory; ma‘mal means “factory” in Arabic. In 1900, the Kassissieh family established a tile factory in the Old City. The factory produced the patterned floor tiles commonly found in Palestinian homes. The factory remained active until the mid-1970s, when the municipality withdrew licenses from all factories operating inside the Old City.