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mixed media installation: 6 wooden display boxes (110 x 60 x 90 cm) with photographs; International Academy of Art Palestine, Al Bireh; 2 photographs (320 x 240 cm) displayed in a public space in Ramallah and Al Bireh
The face of the place carries its story. An examining eye can read what was there, despite all the interruptions that try to withhold one narrative and impose another, because these interruptions and impositions (the wall, the humiliating checkpoints, the cancerous settlements, the road signs, the banners, etc) that the Hebrew State has enforced have been too brutal and ugly to miss seeing them. Wherever you direct the lens of the camera, they will occupy part of the frame. If you stopped by a detail (like what is written on a road sign), you will clearly see how the place has been manipulated, and something new has been made to replace what was engraved on stones and trees, names… in your personal and collective memory.
What has failed to be owned through such impositions can be owned through manipulating words and playing with letters.
After being manipulated, the place in Palestine is not able any more to give you the image-identity that you are looking for. You, the son of this place, a stranger, lost in front of these imposed signs and banners.
These signs become a cross, where the memory-image-identity-history is crucified. You see the Palestinian-Jesus clearly crucified on the sign/banner. Jesus passed through here. Jesus is part of your memory and the memory of the place. But you can’t help seeing him crucified on the sign
Salama Safadi
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