‘To be creative is to exist’: rejecting resilience, enacting Sumud in the cultural resistance of ASHTAR theatre

This article problematises the concept of ‘resilience’, and the globalised power dynamics which lie behind a narrative of overcoming adversity in the context of Palestinian Theatre. By exploring the work of ASHTAR, specifically focusing on the artist Iman Aoun, this paper examines the lack of political and practical solidarity revealed in languages and agendas of resilience. This analysis of practice is set within a theoretical framework of border navigation, space and place, and of modes of resistance where the Palestinian concept of sumud is foregrounded as an indigenous lens to view the infrapolitical resistance of the West Bank arts community.