402 OF GRAY
The construction of the Apartheid Wall began in 2002 AD during the second Intifada and at the end of 2006 it reached 402 km. It passes on a tortuous path that surrounds most of the West Bank.And in certain places such as the city of Qalqilya, it forms enclaves, and a group of towns almost surrounded by the wall from all sides. And in the same year, in conjunction with the temporary halt of construction work, Israel began imposing a comprehensive closure on the Gaza Strip that lasts until this day.
The moment they started building the apartheid wall, I was 12 years old at the time, I didn’t realize what it meant to be surrounded by all this gray that became the pigment of everything, the wall is gray, the siege is gray, the bombing is gray, the buildings are gray, the people are gray, politics and money are gray , Everything is gray.
The wall is the physical form of closure and blockade is the Psychological state of closure. Both constitute violence and have an impact on geography, people, and freedom of movement.
For me, the experience of isolation for thirty years inside the Gaza Strip, accompanied with many failed exit attempts, constituted an impetus to find alternative ways to see the outside world. Google Maps was the only window available to do that and in this project it is one of my tools to obtain different materials for my artwork.
By an intense digital processing process I mix the layers of images included in the artwork that I have excavated and extracted it from the Internet archive, such as what Google Maps and Google Photos provide. Through this process I attempt to form a review of the time scene of the distortion caused by the Apartheid Wall or the siege of the Gaza Strip and i attempt to make maps of cities, sectors and mazes for the parallel world in which I live. From another angle it may be understood as the results of a microscopic research that shows a new type of cells.
These works are the result of research that has been going on for three years, and not only explores the effects left by the Israeli occupation policy, but is an attempt to answer one of my research questions about the effects of the wall. Is it possible to create an alternative artistic narrative by using images of violence against people, the Palestinian land and the environment, such as the wall, sewage dumps, military barracks, roundabouts and borders?
The moment they started building the apartheid wall, I was 12 years old at the time, I didn’t realize what it meant to be surrounded by all this gray that became the pigment of everything, the wall is gray, the siege is gray, the bombing is gray, the buildings are gray, the people are gray, politics and money are gray , Everything is gray.
The wall is the physical form of closure and blockade is the Psychological state of closure. Both constitute violence and have an impact on geography, people, and freedom of movement.
For me, the experience of isolation for thirty years inside the Gaza Strip, accompanied with many failed exit attempts, constituted an impetus to find alternative ways to see the outside world. Google Maps was the only window available to do that and in this project it is one of my tools to obtain different materials for my artwork.
By an intense digital processing process I mix the layers of images included in the artwork that I have excavated and extracted it from the Internet archive, such as what Google Maps and Google Photos provide. Through this process I attempt to form a review of the time scene of the distortion caused by the Apartheid Wall or the siege of the Gaza Strip and i attempt to make maps of cities, sectors and mazes for the parallel world in which I live. From another angle it may be understood as the results of a microscopic research that shows a new type of cells.
These works are the result of research that has been going on for three years, and not only explores the effects left by the Israeli occupation policy, but is an attempt to answer one of my research questions about the effects of the wall. Is it possible to create an alternative artistic narrative by using images of violence against people, the Palestinian land and the environment, such as the wall, sewage dumps, military barracks, roundabouts and borders?
