Access & Closure

A poster-size map issued by the United Nations Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) titled: West Bank: Access and Closure (June 2006) forms the basis for this project. This map, which is one of many that I acquired from OCHA in East Jerusalem, is updated every few months to reflect current situations in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. For example, as checkpoints are built, relocated or dismantled, OCHA documents these changes. The information illustrated on this map is complex and nuanced. It outlines Israeli settlements, “closed” military areas, and marks checkpoints, barriers, and gates. To the untrained viewer, it may not be immediately clear how these lines and symbols - the facts on the ground - affect the people who reside in or travel through the area. The bypass roads which are restricted only to “Israeli” cars bearing yellow license plates, (as opposed to “Palestinian” green ones) are drawn in blue. The wall in its varying stages – planned, completed, or currently under construction – is marked in broken red, solid red, and broken black line. This single map shows the numerous physical devices that restrict movement and cut Palestine into pieces. In this project, I created three visual interpretations of the OCHA map. Each of my three maps isolates a single element described in the original. Using the lines of the legend that describe each restricting device, I trace and cut one at a time. Planned and Constructed follows the route of the wall; Restricted and Prohibited follows the direction of Jewish-only roads. Areas A & B outlines the areas to be controlled either fully or partially by the Palestinian Authority according to the now defunct Oslo agreement. The cutout areas of each work split the paper to such a degree that it takes the form of a three-dimensional object. Referring to the fragmented land of Palestine itself, this single sheet of paper verges on disintegration. One of the three pieces, Planned and Constructed, takes its title from the legend on the original map. The work conflates all phases of the wall into a single line. It is a tracing that has been cut out and away from a large sheet of paper. It has the appearance of an abstracted shape; a thin, jagged strip separates one portion of the paper from the other. The paper appears to be falling apart as it tries to peel away from itself. The large falling shape is the landmass of the new Palestine: the West Bank as it has been reshaped by wall, dividing it from Israel. The white paper represents the land, but the thin strip, the wall, is not a securing presence. As it makes tight and sharp angles, incising the otherwise pristine paper, we see how this small strip affects the entire page, or geographic area, encircling areas, which drop out or barely hang on. The feeling of fragility and fragmentation that we see as this single sheet of paper is cut into pieces, just barely holding together, feeds into the idea that this wall and the route it takes is further segmenting the land of Palestine. Large pieces of paper have been completely removed where the wall fully encircles Palestinian land. Some villages are being squeezed and cut out of the landscape while others are surrounded by Israeli settlements and thus appropriated into Israeli borders.

Planned and Constructed, as well as the other two works, also resembles a larger-than-life body. It is just under eight-feet high, extending down to the ground. But even though this body is beautiful, it is not healthy. Organs and veins are spilling out of its shell. It only barely supports its own weight. The heaviness and natural curl of the paper is working against itself as it tries to fall down and fold up. Though I made these cutout drawings by tracing an actual map, they are not meant to be instructive. As each work focuses on one specific type of barrier or border, it also omits others: checkpoints, settlements, roadblocks and watchtowers, as well as the green line. Instead, each work is intended to provoke an emotional response: to the wall, to borders, or to dividing roads as symbols of the scarring, cutting, fragmenting occupation.