Video: in conversation with Past Disquiet curator Rasha Salti
In this interview, curator Rasha Salti offers an introduction to Past Disquiet (2025), a documentary and archival exhibition presented at Framer Framed in Amsterdam. Drawing on over a decade of research by curators Kristine Khouri and Rasha Salti, it uncovers a largely forgotten history of politically engaged artists and initiatives and their role in anti-imperialist solidarity movements from the 1960s to the 1980s.
In this interview, curator Rasha Salti offers an introduction to Past Disquiet. She recounts how the exhibition explores four key ‘museums-in-solidarity’ created by artists and initiatives in support of the Palestinian liberation movement, the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, resistance to Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile, and the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.
Salti highlights how each edition of the exhibition responds to its local context, with the current presentation at Framer Framed placing particular emphasis on the Netherlands’ own rich history of solidarity activism from the 1960s through the 1990s. Past Disquiet reconstitutes not only the collections themselves, but also the broader cultural and political networks — exhibitions, conferences, concerts — that surrounded them, much of which has been left out of dominant art historical narratives.
Videography and editing: Ollie Paterson
Past Disquiet is supported by Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Amsterdam Fund for the Arts; Municipality of Amsterdam; VriendenLoterij Fonds; International Institute of Social History; Het Documentaire Paviljoen (IDFA); and Nieuwe Instituut.
Chile / Global Art History / The living archive / Art and Activism / Migration / Palestine / South Africa /
Exhibitions
Exhibition: Past Disquiet
Curated by Kristine Khouri and Rasha Salti, this documentary and archival exhibition uncovers a largely forgotten history of politically engaged artists and initiatives
Network
Rasha Salti
Writer, Researcher, Curator
