This article was originally published by The Washington Report on Middle East Affairsand is republished with permission.

Palestinian children participate in an art class at a summer camp near the West Bank city of Hebron. (Mamoun Wazwaz, Maan Images)

"The Stateless" is the title Mary Evangelista has chosen for a traveling exhibition of mixed media works by 10 Palestinian artists. Preliminary plans for the show were announced at a Sept. 24 reception in the Los Angeles home of Wally and Suzanne Marks.

Evangelista began to acquaint herself with the work of young Palestinian artists when she curated the ARTIsrael exhibitions of 1985 and 1986. As the idea of an exhibition by contemporary Palestinians became a reality, the New Yorker selected a panel of five respected jurors to choose the 10 finalists.

Panel members were artist Kamal Boullata; Barry Rosen of the Eva Hesse Foundation; Dore Ashton, professor of art at New York University; photographer Allen Frame; and Sam Sachs, former director of the Detroit Museum of Art and board member of the Jackson Pollock Foundation.

Showing slides of the participating artists’ works, Evangelista explained that her goal is to expose the art of gifted Palestinians to viewers in nations who are not familiar with their work, as well as to promote dialogue between artists.

Finalists include video artist and painter Sharif Waked, whose subjects range from Renaissance painting to fashion shows. The Haifa-born artist has produced a Chic Point video in which models wear gallabiyas with peek-a-boo midriffs, tunics with lace work that exposes the torso and back, or jackets with horizontal zippers that open to expose a waist sans bomb pack.

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Reem Bader is a video artist who was born in Ramallah and lives in Amman. Life Goes On is the title of her short film, in which she walks through a house and on city streets with her feet attached to two chairs, signifying the difficulty Palestinians have in moving from one point to another.

Other finalists include Shadi al-Habib, winner of the Qattani Foundation’s 2004 Hassan Hourani Award for Young Artists; Gaza photographer and painter Taysir Batniji; Rafat Asad; and Galilee-born Rana Bishara, who conveys the complexity of everyday situations using a variety of media, including pita bread.

Also selected were Alexandra Handal, a researcher at the University of Arts London/Chelsea College of Art and Design; Monther Jawabreh, who was born in a refugee camp in Hebron and lives in Ramallah; United Nations photographer Steve Sabella, who won an Aga Khan Architecture Award in 2004; and Hani Zurob, an abstract painter who was born in Rafah, Gaza and now lives in Paris.

Evangelista is trying to raise $188,000 to insure and ship the works to venues throughout the world. She hopes to open the 50-piece exhibition in New York City next spring, at The White Box in Chelsea. Other venues will include the Arab Museum in Dearborn, MI and Busboys and Poets in Washington, DC. Galleries in California are being discussed, in addition to The Galleria in Dubai, Artneuland in Berlin, UNESCO’s Paris headquarters, and museums in Budapest and Marrakech.