Inside the Palestinian Sound Archive - Manchester

Uncovered from old shops, markets and family archives across the West Bank, the Palestinian Sound Archive is a platform for vinyl records and tapes along with stories of their production, distribution and relevance to Palestinian history. It is a celebration of music, spoken word and album artwork from historic Palestine, mainly from the 1960s – 1990s. Founder Mo’min Swaitat comes from a background in theatre, having trained in the Freedom Theatre in Jenin and the Jacques Lecoq Method of physical theatre in London and Berlin. He recently featured in Jack King’s black and white film The Ceremony and in Annemarie Jacir’s historical drama Palestine ‘36, due for release later this year. Swaitat comes from a long line of Bedouin musicians and storytellers, and the archive references his rootedness in music as a means of celebrating one’s culture and sense of belonging. In 2020, during the pandemic, he discovered a former record label in his hometown of Jenin, in the north of the West Bank, which began an ongoing process of gathering and researching materials related to Palestinian sonic history. Over several years, the archive has grown and includes thousands of cassettes and vinyl records from Palestine and beyond, spanning everything from field recordings of Bedouin weddings to revolutionary albums from the First and Second Intifadas, instrumental tracks, poetry, soul, folk songs and jazz. Swaitat is focused on sampling, remixing and reissuing vintage Palestinian and Arab albums, shedding new light on the richness and diversity of Palestinian and Arab cultural and musical heritage. This event explores archival practice as a decolonial methodology and act of resistance, through sharing archival sounds and images that preserve and document Palestinian heritage, culture, celebrating, dance and resistance. This listening session features sounds from the Majazz Project, Palestinian Sound Archive and friends, with merchandise on sale to support the project.