Thought 1 – RIVALRY
By having such an installation of six Israelis facing one Palestinian, we are not only
confronting each other’s ‘Otherness’—face-to-face, and right to the core, but as male bodies
who might have fought several wars, we are suddenly engaged in a complex visual challenge.
The spectator who will stand in the middle of the installation cannot see both sides at
the same time.
The spectator must make a critical choice.
The work could be read, and since we are all wearing underwear as if we are ‘adult infants',
people who suddenly realized the existence of the Other. The fragments of six Israelis form
one body (me), and my image is fragmented into six bodies. Hence, such an installation
creates a problematic concept, which is unsettling.
Thought 2 - IDENTIFICATION
This installation, which could also be considered an act of introspection and interrogation,
will create a clash between the two words ‘Identity’ and ‘Identification’. By creating
this visual and opposite imbalance and as the wall segments unite together to form a massive
wall, this work will trigger many questions and inevitably reactions.
Thought 3 – CONCRETE
We live on the same land but it is as if we live on foreign lands. Artificial hills are
built to hide the Israeli Separation Wall, and sometimes it is painted in the color of the
land to disguise it. But can one really ignore who lives behind the Wall?
The image of the concrete wall not only acts as a metaphor of separation but also as an
imagined dichotomy of superiority and inferiority. It is the concrete visualization of
a psychological barrier.
Thought 4 – PARANOIA
‘Paranoia’?
‘Paranoia’?
The writer Tami Freiman, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, writes how Israel’s anxiety
was transformed into an ideological instrument justifying the oppression of others. How the
nation has the Holocaust breathing down on its necks, in fear that it might happen again.
Hence, ‘victory’ for Israel against Arabs was always crucial.
In everyday use, ‘paranoia’ means a feeling of persecution unjustified in reality.
Israel is a state that lives in fear. Does this one Palestinian pause a threat?
Thought 5 – ESSENCE
The work aims at getting rid of nostalgic kitsch layers that have coated political artworks. Getting rid of the clothes signals the need to go back to the essence.
Thought 6 – BEGINNING
We entered a war of emotions and representation, where each side wants to show the world
the might of the Other. The settlement lies in going back to the basics, and to the origin
of the Palestinian and Israeli dilemma.
Thought 7 – SETTLEMENT
The name of the project “Settlement”, in the English language has many connotations.
Settlement could mean to settle accounts, or to reach a resolution, or to the colonial
settlement on the ground.
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