Keep Your Eye on the Wall: Palestinian Landscapes

Edited by Olivia Snaije and Mitchell Albert

Foreword by Raja Shehadeh

Imprint: Saqi Books

ISBN: 9780863567599

Published: September 2013

In art and literature, walls are frequently used as powerful symbols of division. For the people of Palestine, however, the wall that cuts deeply into their land and society is all too real, snaking through over 700 kilometres of the West Bank and Gaza. It throttles Palestinians, seals off Israelis, and all but guarantees perpetual ignorance, fear and rage on both sides.

Keep Your Eye on the Wall brings together seven award-winning artist-photographers and four essayists, all responding to the Wall in images or words. The photographers present unique perspectives, whether it is documenting the journey of labourers across the concrete separation barrier, or exploring the layers and textures of a wall in Gaza.

Informed, critical and powerful, the photographs constitute, in the words of French philosopher of art Georges Didi-Huberman, ‘a space for struggle’.

Exceptional, hand-bound concertina, making Keep Your Eye on the Wall a beautiful object and a special gift item. (editor)

http://www.saqibooks.co.uk/book/eye-wall-2/

Comment:

The book brings together photographers, essayists, and a fiction writer to comment and reflect on the presence of the enormous barrier wall (others call it a security wall) snaking through hundreds of kilometers of the West Bank, separating Palestinians from Israelis.

The book Keep Your Eye on the Wall: Paysages Palestiniens was published in July in France by Editions Textuel, and in English this month by Saqi Books in the UK. A gorgeous object in itself, it is hand-bound in concertina format — mimicking the undulating form of the barrier itself.

” (…) One favorite passage is by Malu Halasa, who poses the question of whether or not the Wall should be aestheticized, as an object in art or for art. She summarizes the point like this:

”The debate over the value of representing the architecture of oppression in art or leaving it alone in the name of resisting normalisation is useful and necessary. However, for artists inside and outside the region, it is not possible to remain neutral on the issue. Those who elect to include the Wall in their work seem to invite and provoke reflection on several questions centred on power and its prerogatives. Given the choice, they seem to ask, where would you like to live? On one side or another of a very high wall, or in countries where there a fruitful dialogue between neighbours is possible, and Separation Walls no longer exist?” (…)” (interview with Olivia Snaije)

More : http://publishingperspectives.com/2013/10/

copyright : Raeda Saadeh, Concrete Walls Series

ndr : Merci à Philippe R. pour l’information.

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