Scandar Copti’s video installation CFJ1 (College des Frères, Jaffa) presents four Christian Arab men who grew up in Jaffa, the artist included. Their common feature is the fact that as children they attended the French Christian School. The building was erected in 1882 to disseminate French culture in the region, and continued operation in situ, insisting on a European curriculum and schooling system, despite the dramatic changes undergone by the community which it serves: the 1948 war, the deportation of part of the Palestinian inhabitants, the entry of a new Jewish population, introduction of the Israeli educational system, and the dwindling of the Christian population within Palestinian society in Israel. Through the conversation of these four men, Copti unfolds the school’s story as an island of stability, on the one hand, and as a dull mirror reflecting the transformations endured by Jaffa and the Christian-Arab community, on the other.
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