Mountain Biking in Palestine with Khaled Jarrar

Khaled Jarrar is a multidisciplinary artist originally from Jenin, Palestine who lived in Tucson during the time this interview was recorded in 2018. In this episode, Khaled and host Kylie have a conversation about the first time Khaled ever saw someone ride a mountain bike down a mountain, and how it changed his life. Khaled and his friends in Palestine ride bikes as an act of resistance, to feel free, and to laugh. But there is always uncertainty and a certain amount of risk in doing the activity, something Khaled talks about in his interview. Khaled has won numerous awards for his works, which include photographs, videos, installations, films, and performances that are focused on his native Palestine. We are rebroadcasting this interview now—in a moment when the mountain biking trails Jarrar mentions are certainly unusable by Palestinian people, millions of whom are being expelled from their lands with over 11,000 civilians killed during the ongoing, brutal attacks on Gaza— to celebrate the ways Palestinian people have long used creative expression and joy as forms of resistance.