WBC Willy Brandt Center Jerusalem

On Occasion of the exhibition:
Lecture and discussion with Ariane Littman-Cohen about her
ongoing project "Borderland".

EXHIBITION: Ariane Littman-Cohen

Borderland -
Walking and Mapping Jerusalem's Borderlines

Mapping and Walking Jerusalem's Borderline is part of an ongoing project entitled Border Land, a project started in 2000 that grew out of the visible and often less visible, geographic, cultural and military borders of the city of Jerusalem and beyond.

The show conveys through a body of works created by Ariane Littman-Cohen since 1998, the chronic condition of the city of Jerusalem which bears the scars of its inner fragmentation.

Since 2004, photojournalism has became an inseparable part of the enquiry of the Border Land, beyond checkpoints within the West Bank and Palestinian territories, into a land where no Israeli citizens are allowed and where the points of friction occurring between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers are mainly witnessed and reported by the media.

(Curator: Cheb M. Kammerer)

Among the works on show:

The Road Maps series (2000-06), triggered by the second Intifada, they enhance the physical separation along the Green line between Palestinian villages and Israeli neighbourhoods which become bound together through an absence/ presence structural resonance.
Moving from the abstract lines of cartographical maps into a more concrete reality, The Jerusalem Scrolls (2003-07), document the checkpoints and the Separation Barrier erected at the edge of the city while the video, Surgical Operation (2004) documents a performance during which Closure Maps of barriers and road networks around Jerusalem, are dissected, sewed with green threads and patched with plaster bandages, amid breaking news of Palestinians suicide bombing attacks in the city and reports of IDF retaliation strikes on Palestinian cities.
The action conveys in a metaphorical way the chronic condition of the city of Jerusalem: a sick ‘patient’ suffering from an incurable pathologic violence.

Ariane Littman-Cohen
"BORDERLAND"
Opening: 17.5.2007 at 7pm
Exhibition: 18.5.-21.6.2007 | Mon-Thu 2-5pm

www.willybrandtcenter.org/en/red/reviews07/borderland
07.01.2009, 06:01