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Steve
Sabella Artist's Statement
Jerusalem has witnessed many occupations, but
access to the city over the last 58 years has been more
difficult than ever before. With the construction of the
separation wall around it and through it, Jerusalem has
become an isolated and lost city.
A few years ago, the distinguished
Jerusalemite artist Kamal Boullata, in an article about my
artistic experiences, pointed out that he considered me an
“artist in exile” even though I lived in Jerusalem. This was
indeed a ‘reality’ I lived in but was, however, unaware of.
Today, I have realized that the entire city of Jerusalem
is a city “in exile”.
Jerusalem has always had distinctive meaning
to Palestinians. When asked to, each one of us, undoubtedly,
will have a different description of the city. For people
who cannot visit it, or whose visit to it is limited to a
tourist stay due to occupational constraints, or to those
who have been denied the right of return, a certain image of
Jerusalem dwells in their imaginations and memories. These
thoughts and images, over time, become suspended and charged
with emotions that struggle to come to light and to reality.
However, the factual reality of Jerusalem on the ground is
one that is colonized and entrapped.
Hence, I would like to liberate and
transform these imaginings and thoughts into tangible visual
images—that is, to create a photographic image from the
descriptions of these various mental ‘images’ of Jerusalem
as relayed to me by Palestinians from all over the world.
Their descriptions of their images will give us the
opportunity to discover, and to experience Jerusalem in new
ways. The imagination will act as an extra uncontrolled
dimension, in a sense; it will be the vehicle that will
drive the thoughts of Palestinians in the world to every
street corner in Jerusalem, in effect liberating it. It will
be an interaction of imaginations, my imagination as an
exiled artist from within, and the imagination of the exiled
people from outside, which no walls can stop.
This endeavor, I hope, will stimulate ideas
and emotions. It is intended for the resulting collection to
be compiled and presented in a book of art entitled
“Jerusalem in Exile – tangible memories”, which will be
edited by poet Najwan Darwish, with whom I often investigate
questions on art, identity and life that surround our common
‘exile’ in Jerusalem. We hope the book will include valuable
texts on Jerusalem and on the issues of belonging and home,
featuring, among others, distinguished Palestinian artists
and thinkers and intellectuals.
The experience of
transcendence, of words into images, of imagination into
reality, will eventually create an art of celebration, of
birth and rebirth, an art that will live and rise beyond
boundaries
Also read an essay by
Steve Sabella that focuses on the
function of mental images and memory and how photography
plays a role.
A
New Perception of Jerusalem
click here
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N V I
T A T I
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click here
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