About Us
As the Palestinian Museum’s signature project, the Digital Archive (PMDA) illuminates over 200 years of the Palestinian narrative for posterity and those interested in Palestinian history wherever they happen to be with a collection nearing 70,000 endangered objects ranging from photographs and documents to artworks and posters.
Being a people’s archive through and through, PMDA scouts, researches, and digitises imperiled Palestinian archives and sets them down for the public eye and research communities. The PMDA collection gives voice to the Palestinian narrative as fleshed out in people and organisations’ records and memorabilia where the collective history and individual experience thread through and wrap around each other.
Disclaimer: Please note that this is a beta version of the PMDA site. The services and content available through our Site, therefore, are available “as are” and “as available.” We make no representations or warranties about the accuracy, completeness, timeliness, reliability, or non-infringement of any content available through our Site, including the assumption that our Site, or Content is error-free or will be uninterrupted.
The Palestinian Museum is an independent institution dedicated to supporting an open and dynamic Palestinian culture nationally and internationally. The Museum presents and engages with new perspectives on Palestinian history, society and culture. It also offers spaces for creative ventures, educational programmes and innovative research. The Museum is a flagship project of Taawon-Welfare Association and one of the most exciting new cultural projects in Palestine.
The Museum’s Vision
The Palestinian Museum aims to contribute to a vibrant Palestinian cultural scene with a national and international presence, capable of strengthening the bonds between Palestinians and those interested in their culture and history.
The Museum will focus on promoting Palestinian culture in the Arab world and internationally; creating the environment for free and innovative intellectual and creative endeavour; advocating for the use of cultural tools for educational purposes; strengthening a sense of unifying national identity; and fostering a culture of dialogue.
Museum without Borders
The Palestinian Museum was designed as a transnational institution, capable of overcoming geographical and political boundaries to reach Palestinians within historic Palestine and beyond. Its digital collections and online platforms, alongside its network of local and international partnerships, will allow for the sharing of skills, resources, programmes and exhibitions with individuals and institutions worldwide.
Our Story
In 1997, members of Taawon-Welfare Association wanted to create a museum dedicated to the memory of the Nakba in order to document the catastrophe that shaped the history of modern Palestine as a result of the expulsion from their homeland of more than 60 percent of the country’s Arab inhabitants. With time, however, this idea evolved so that the Museum no longer only focusses on the Nakba, but is now planned as an institution that can celebrate Palestine’s culture more broadly. The Museum aims to do this through a series of innovative and creative programmes that will allow its audience to also reflect on the present in order to imagine a better future.
Taawon-Welfare Association is an independent Palestinian non-profit organisation, committed to providing development and humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in the West Bank, Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, 1948 Areas, and the Palestinian communities in Lebanon.