The sound installation by Khaled Hourani and Miri Segal, describes Hourani’s experiences while crossing the Gaza-Ramallah border. The installation sets out to convey the situation of the Palestinian people doomed to silencing, blindness and isolation. By separating Hourani’s voice, as he reads the text (which he wrote) in Arabic, and splitting the Hebrew translation, the installation attempt to convey a sense of social, cultural and everyday isolation.
”The horizon is blocked and nothing remotely resembles what the entrance to Gaza used to be like years ago. A two or three-story building. Barbed-wire fences and control towers and body search points are located outside the mute building. Strict security inspections welcome you upon entry. The soldiers sit in a room behind thick glass, facing state-of-the-art computers. The room looks like a space station. Your picture appears on screen when you start waving your papers behind the glass. You then begin the entry process. The cameras follow you, and the loudspeakers give instructions in a jumble of languages. They order you to stop and perform a self-search. Turn around; take off your coat in the middle of the long tunnel leading to the Gaza Strip. The building and gates keep you distant from the soldiers. You must obey the orders whose exact source you cannot tell.
The decisive tone infuses you with a sense of emptiness and solitude. You are carefully watched. You don’t know whether you should hasten your step or rather walk slowly. Whether you should put your hands in yours pockets or not. The instructions of a poor director in an irony-filled play. You are controlled by the voice. All you have to do is obey the orders and keep silent. There is no one to hear you, and you cannot explain or ask anything. Once you enter the tunnel, the doors around you open and close automatically as in science fiction movies. You become a receiver and an examinee, you cannot transmit; you cannot examine or speak to anyone. You are the one being addressed. A one-way contact. You are an object, not a subject. An a-priori suspect. Surrounded.” [From: The Road to Gaza: Universal Rituals in a Local Content, Khaled Hourani. Highlighting, Miri Segal].
Arabic with Hebrew and English subtitles
Catalogue no. 585
File: People Land State
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