MITRA AZAR / WAILING WALL / KALANDIA CHECKPOINT / 2013 Audio curated by Abdul Rahman Chamber The work consists of a two channels video-installation. On the left screen, the artist slams his head compulsively against the wall which separates Israel from the West-bank territories, where the majority of the Palestinian population lives. This gesture recalls the movement which accompanies the prayer of Orthodox Jews in front of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, creating a conceptual short-circuit between one of the most important places of the Jewish religion and the wall erected by the Israeli state to control the movement of the Palestinian people. The performance was realized on the Palestinian side of the Kalandia checkpoint separating Ramallah (capital of the Palestinian state) from Jerusalem (where the Wailing Wall is located), and tries to embody metaphorically the violent invasion of Jewish body language into the Palestinian territories, recalling the bloody actions of occupation of Palestinian land by Israeli settlers. Furthermore, the wound caused by the compulsive repetition of the action evokes the marks that Muslims achieve after years of kneeling and rubbing their fronts against carpets and floors - as well as more extreme practices such as those connected to the celebration of the Ashura by Shiite Muslims, where the worshippers hit their heads repeatedly with steel chains, swords and razors, causing copious bleeding. Finally, the clashing of the artist's head against the wall comments darkly over the apparent impossibility of finding a rational solution to the conflict. On the right screen, an ant tries to climb along the same wall, dragging some food. The image evokes the illegal crossing that some Palestinians are forced to undertake to get food, to work, to visit their beloved on the other side of the wall. The audio which accompanies the performance suggests the hypothetical sonic perception of the ant and tries to emphasize the hypnotic repetition of the action, the presence of the wind, the movement of the insect’s legs on the wall.
