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Who we are?
The Forum seeks to integrate all efforts and initiatives aimed at enabling Palestinians to enhance their creativity and ownership of a vibrant culture and to provide opportunities for artistic creativity, regardless of their age, gender, or financial situation. The Forum strives for art to be a way of life, and to be employed effectively in social development. In essence, VAF works to mainstream the appreciation of arts as a means of expression, change, entertainment, as well as freedom of thought in Palestine.
The Forum believes that the visual arts can contribute to the formation of a system of human and national values. Visual arts contribute to developments in science, expansion of knowledge, the use of reason and logic in our daily lives, and decisions and attitudes on reaching a renewed and a society with vibrant cultural and intellectual movements.
This is achieved through a wide range of programs, activities and events, based on teaching, experiencing, interacting with, and producing art. To achieve this vision, VAF has 4 core programs:
VAF’s story: Upon the outbreak of the second Intifada in the year 2000, and the traumatizing individual and collective impact it had on the Palestinian society, a group of Palestinian artists who believe in art as a tool for expression, change, and freedom of thought, initiated a set of street art activities across the villages and cities in the occupied West Bank. They employed art as a means of stress release for children and youth, enhancing the freedom of children and young people to express their views, unleash their imagination, develop creative thought, and freely express ideas and feelings in a safe and creative environment. Realizing the dire need and eagerness of the community to learn visual arts, the Visual Arts Forum (VAF) was established in 2002. Since then, it has provided a safe and creative platform for thousands of children, youth and adults to learn, produce and interact with visual arts, under the slogan “Art is for All”.
VAF Vision: Towards a Palestinian society that is aware of its culture and identity, and that believes that art and creativity are main tools of expression, change, development, and freedom of thought.
VAF mission: We aim to provide opportunities to learn visual arts in unconventional methods, and to mainstream its uses in bringing change, and bolstering freedom of thought.