LiminalSpaces

Khaled Horani

Dad, I Want the Box of Paints:
A Journey Within Contemporary Memory
I am interested in public issues and anxiously obsessed with following
news bulletins because I live in an occupied country, where most people
live the tragedy of being addicted to public issues. I would prefer to live in
a country that goes by unnoticed in the political sphere. Stable, developed
countries do not exhaust their inhabitants by concentrating their attention
on such issues; they grant them the pleasure of indifference,of living with
ease the mere fact of their existence. In such countries, the state acts as a
tree that provides shelter ? hardly noticed, yet vital for life.

In my truly beloved country, people are constantly living on the edge,
in a state of oppression in which basic everyday activities like traveling
and peaceful organization are unstable, and need to be constantly
negotiated.
The Borders of What?
The border crossing I am concerned with is one of the crossings between
the West Bank and Jordan. It is probably the only crossing that is referred
to in short simply as “al-jisser” ? the bridge. And yet it is a crossing that
has many names, and many denotations: for the Palestinians, it is the Al-
Karama Crossing; for the Israelis, it is the Allenby Crossing, named aer
the British General Allenby; for the Jordanians, it is King Hussein’s
Crossing; for the singer Fairuz, as well as for numerous writers, it is the
Bridge of Return.

Scrutinizing this border crossing, which separates the territories occupied
since 1967 from the world, is not limited to studying its names, their
symbolism and their various denotations; it extends to the analysis of the
place as a military border crossing that both connects and separates. It is
a crossing whose opening and closing represent periods of war and
moments of cease-fire?and which provides advantage point from which
to re-write the history of the conflict.

Writing the history of this crossing would require an extensive study in
order to cover the many details related to it, and the changes that have
occurred since its establishment ? the ever-changing procedures of
crossing; their timing; and the various documents and permits required
in order to cross, which are as diverse as the policies of the authorities
issuing them. It has a crossing which has been controlled by the Israeli
occupation and by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, while citizens of a
third country ? the Palestinians ?pass through it.
Due to the fact that the crossing has continued to play this same role, and
has affected many lives, I thought of choosing a story or two that
happened to me some time ago. The story might well recur, and is one of
many stories ? as numerous and diverse as the people crossing the bridge
to and from the West Bank.
In telling of this simple story and the related experience of crossing,
which I will present as an enlarged book page on a wall, I will employ
documents, pictures and other data; these will be used to demonstrate
and explain what is vital and necessary to know about this process,
including the explanation of simple facts. It is possible to narrate the
whole story in a few sentences: people who have undergone this
experience, and who are familiar with the place, will easily get the
message. I would refer to it simply as the “bridge”, and it would be
understood that it is King Hussein’s Bridge I am referring to. I would use
the term “the Bank”, and it would be understood that I am referring to the
West Bank of the Jordan River, and not to the west bank of any other river
in the world. I would say “the customs”, and my mother and neighbors
would certainly understand me. None of them would require illustrations
or elaborations. When I say that this story happened in the past, they
would certainly understand that it also happening now, and will happen
tomorrow as well.
I exist in a place that is not a state ? full of checkpoints, border crossings
and barricades. When there is no state, there are no borders.
The Bridge on the Jordan River is a border crossing run by two states that
allow for the passage ? that grant the permission of passage ? to citizens
of a third country, which was called Palestine.
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Khaled Horani, Born 1965, Hebron, Palestine. Lives and works in Ramallah. General
Director of the Fine Arts department at the Palestinian Ministry of
culture. General Coordinator of the International Artists Workshop
Palestine, Jifna, Spring 2005. He has exhibited his works in Hebron,
Jerusalem, Gaza, Ramallah, Tunisia, Qatar, Egypt, Italy, Jordan, Norway,
Japan, New York, the UK and Switzerland. He also writes about art and
organizes and curates art exhibits. In 1997, he founded Al-Matal Gallery
in Ramallah. In 1996, he was selected by the Swiss arts foundation
Pro-Helvetia as a resident artist to spend six months in Geneva. From
2002 to 2005, he participated in the International Art Book Workshop
at Bibliotheca, Alexandria, Egypt. In 2004, he participated in Braziers
International Artists Workshop, UK and was a resident artist for one
month in Bristol, UK.
matal@p-ol.com