Talks

Past Disquiet: Opening Lecture by Tariq Ali

Tariq Ali, Kristine Khouri, Rasha Salti

Background photograph: An anti-apartheid demonstration, Trafalgar Square, March 1960. Source: Henry Grant Collection/London Museum. CC BY-NC 4.0. Graphic Design: Farah Fayyad.

Date and Time:: Wednesday 4 Feb, 6:30-8pm
Location:: Majlis

The opening lecture of Past Disquiet: Excavating Solidarity in the Arts, invites Tariq Ali to reflect on his experience with anti-imperialist solidarity movements and their intersections with arts in the UK.

The lecture will draw on Ali's acclaimed memoirs The Street Fighting Years and You Can’t Please all - Memories 1980 to 2024. It will be followed by a discussion and Q&A with the co-curators of Past Disquiet Kristine Khouri and Rasha Salti, moderated by Hammad Nasar.

The bookshop will host a special book signing of The Islam Quintet, Tariq Ali's relaunched series of five historical novels which examine the encounters among Muslims, Christians, and Jews through the ages.

Tariq Ali is a writer and film-maker. He has written over fifty books on world history and politics including six novels and many plays. His latest books include biographies of Lenin (2017, Churchill (2022) and a second set of memoirs 'You Can't Please All' was published in 2024. A new edition of the five historical novels known as 'The Islam Quintet' is published by Verso in February 2026. He is an editor of New Left Review and lives in London.

Rasha Salti is a researcher, writer, producer, and curator of art and film. She lives in Marseille.

Kristine Khouri is a researcher with a background in Arab cultural history and art history. Her interests focus on the history of art circulation, collection, exhibition, and infrastructure in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as archival practice and knowledge dissemination.

Kristine Khouri and Rasha Salti are researchers and curators of Past Disquiet, a long-term research project that began in 2008 and was transformed into a documentary and archival exhibition that has been exhibited internationally seven times since 2015. They are also co-editors of Past Disquiet: Artists, International Solidarity, and Museums in Exile, (2018).

Past Disquiet Programme Companion Guide