Idea
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Liminal Spaces is an eight-month international art project which aims at
refuting the realities of occupation and its dynamics by examining notions
of urban spaces, borders, mental and physical segregation, cultural
territories and the possibilities of art within political frameworks. In light
of the ever-growing hardship endured by Palestinians under Israeli
occupation; persistent loss of land, deprivation of freedom of mobility, as
well as basic political and civil rights, this international cooperative
project takes as its starting point the spatial borders that characterize
Israel’s colonial project. Frontier cities like Jerusalem have become
laboratories of an urbanism of radical ethnic segregation. Since the Second
Intifada and Israel’s unilateral construction of the Wall, declared illegal
by the International Court of Justice at the Hague, this situation has
intensified to an alarming degree and the urban fabric has disintegrated
into a spatial and mental archipelago. This radical separation affects
Palestinians in diverse ways; they suffer the loss of basic freedoms,
restrictions on travel and severe surveillance that endanger the future of
their society.
Context
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The Israeli project of territorial and demographic control has been
deeply inscribed into the physical and social fabric of the intersecting
regions of Israel and Palestine. Urban frontier zones like Jerusalem
have become laboratories of an urbanism of colonial expansion and
ethnic segregation that are unique in their extremes: a spatial matrix
of ethnically-homogeneous insular realities, contained within spatial
and mental frontiers. Everyday contact zones between the ‘Israeli’ and
‘Palestinian’ city and also between Palestinians on either side of the Wall,
have eroded to the bare minimum. Physical frontiers are reinforced by the
generic architectural vocabulary of aggressive seclusion, mirroring global
trends of socioeconomic, ethnic and political segregation. Domestic and
public spaces in the Israeli city have become increasingly militarized as
preventative measures are adopted against the omnipresent fear of real,
constructed terror and internal threats. Security, control and ambient fear
transform everyday urban spaces into frontier zones, suburbs into gated
enclaves, suburban shopping centers into fortresses. An equally strong
impact is exercised by mass communication tools and media technologies
that foreground radicalized images and condition the everyday
perception of the other. For Palestinians, Jerusalem has become a closed
and ever-shrinking city; open only to those holding an Israeli ID card
and able to afford living in the city’s ever more congested neighborhoods.
Israeli walls and settlements (illegal under international law), bypass
routes and checkpoints have become synonymous with a routine reality
that integrates vocabularies such as ‘closure’ and ‘curfew’. In the context of
increasing political and economic hardship, Palestinians are preoccupied
with their mere everyday survival.
The site
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Road 60 is the historic traffic artery and connecting spine between
Jerusalem, Ramallah and beyond. Its present condition could be
considered prototypical of the alienation, segregation, and fragmentation
that characterize the Israeli method of occupation. The once fluid space
of connection and urban growth has dissolved into a complex array of
buffer zones,security or containment zones,border areas,walls or sites of
involuntary proximity and collision such as checkpoints (both permanent
and temporary).
Before the erection of the Wall and the checkpoints, the road was a
monument to the colonial relation between Israel and the Palestinian
areas; urban growth was severely curtailed from 1967 onwards by a
plethora of laws and zoning regulations. Today, the road has taken on
more horrific dimensions as a result of the checkpoints and the related
regime of control and surveillance. In its most central section within
Jerusalem the road was relocated and widened in the 1980s to follow the
no-mans-land that had divided the city between 1948 and 1967. Planned
as a ‘boulevard for the united city’, in reality, it led to a further deepening
of the fragmentation of Jerusalem’s urban fabric by forming a wide
buffer zone in the shape of an urban highway: an invisible wall and mental
barrier. As the road advances north, it cuts through the suburban terrain
of East Jerusalem where Israeli settlements face Palestinian enclaves and
villages, passing the refugee camp of Shu’afat. Here, the road becomes a
bypass road whose exits and entrances access the ethnically segregated
satellites of Greater Jerusalem. Shortly before the Palestinian town of Ar-
Ram, the new Wall swings into the road space dividing it along its central
line with the aim of cutting off Ar-Ram (to the East) from the urban fabric
of annexed municipal Jerusalem and the industrial area to the West. A
new border regime was established, reducing points of crossing to official
and increasingly sanitized checkpoints such as Qalandiya, one of the
largest checkpoints in the West Bank. The checkpoint is characterized by
a massive hub of Palestinian public transport and an informal market,
as people arriving from the southern West Bank are forced to cross the
checkpoint by foot before continuing their journey on a different bus into
Al Bireh and Ramallah. Frequent incursions by the Israeli army have left
the road in a state of ill-repair. The road passes several abandoned army
checkpoints and Qalandiya and Al Amari refugee camps before entering
the dense urban centers of the twin cities of Ramallah and Al Bireh.
Process
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Curators, cultural figures and artists developed this project through a
series of meetings and discussions that sought to generate active
participation of the art sector in developing modes of expression against
the political status quo of occupation, dehumanization and oppression.
The curators have invited an array of local and international artists to
participate in this project. Additionally, it is hoped that through
participation in the project, new possibilities of contact and exchange will
emerge on an individual basis and beyond.
The project was be launched with a conference from 10-12 March, 2006,
including all project participants and local and international experts
and curators. Through three days of guided walks, presentations and
discussions, the conference provided a forum for debating the possibilities
and limitations of artistic strategies and research tools in providing a
better understanding of the ambivalent nature of physical, mental and
cultural frontiers.
After the conference, eight months of research and development began,
generating new art projects conceived by the participating artists
and architects, through art residencies. Artists were free to further explore
individually and on-site the examined area and produce site-specific work
that explores the constitution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict’s everyday
urban frontiers, and aspires to generate political, mental and social
change. Over a process of six months, participating artists were asked
to develop specific tactics and strategies for addressing the physiognomy
of specific sites and their everyday operations. Individuals or teams
researched new methodologies that question the perception of the frontiers
and challenge their accessibility, permeability and potential as contact
and communication zones. Artists or collaborative teams of artists were
asked to develop strategies that explore, make visible, comment on,
obscure, confront or interact with physical and mental frontier spaces. The
program encouraged an emphasis on new forms of creative practice
which adopts, investigates and subverts contemporary technology and
systems of media communication, underlining the central role played
taken by technology in the shaping of the physical and mental borders.
———————————————————————————-
Curated by: Reem Fadda, Galit Eilat, Eyal Danon, Philipp Misselwitz
———————————————————————————-
Curatorial advisers: Khalid Horani, Andreja Hribernik, Jack Persekian and Barbara Steiner, in cooperation with Interdisziplinares Projekt-Forum (Wolfgang Knapp) of the University of the Arts Berlin / Institute for Art and Context.
———————————————————————————-
The project is supported by:
—————————————————————————————————
LIMINAL SPACES/ grenzraeume has been jointly organized by the
Palestinian Association of Contemporary Art (PACA), Digital Art Lab,
Holon and the University of the Arts, Berlin.
The Palestinian Association for Contemporary Arts - PACA
Reem Fadda, Director
Aref Al Aref House
Behind Arab Bank Al-Bireh
Al-Nahdah Street
Ramallah, Palestine
T: +972 2 2951849
F: +972 2 2967601
E: reemfadda@gmail.com
The Israeli Centre for Digital Art Holon
Galit Eilat, Director
16 Yirmiyahu Street
Holon 58373, Israel
T: +972 3 5568792
F: +972 3 5580003
E: galit@digitalartlab.org.il
Web www.digitalartlab.org.il
Universitat der Kunste Berlin
Philipp Misselwitz (Lehrstuhl Prof. Peter Bayerer) and Wolfgang Knapp
(Interdisziplin?res Projekt-Forum der Universit?t der K?nste Berlin)
Hardenbergstra?e 33
10623 Berlin
T: +0177 4107168
E: misselwitz@studio-uc.net