Israeli & Palestinian artists
exhibit
together for the public peace process
Tuesday, 16 May 2006
"Israeli
and Palestinian artists have joined forces to send a message of reconciliation, " leads Al Jazeera.
It's more art for the public peace process.
"To reach a different people, you need
different mediums," says Aziz Abu Sarah.
Each artist was given an identical ceramic bowl from
which to create their work.
Each artist presents a special bowl of reconciliation,
a bowl of peace and hope, of art instead of animosity.
Aliza Olmert,
wife of the Israeli prime minister, contributed her painted black plate with
Hebrew words: "Jews do not evict Arabs do not evict Jews do not
evict..." in a continuous loop covering the bowl.
Palestinian Jalal Kamel,
"The man is writing peace on the stone, a solid
thing in the ground that nobody can take out no force,
no state can remove it," the
"It is so much the opposite of what is happening
on a political level. I can't tell you how much of a strong impact that has on
me," said Sarah Breitberg-Semel, Tel Aviv
curator and lecturer.
Published Tuesday 16 May 2006 -- Al Jazeera
-- CULTURE
On the Web at http://english.aljazeera.net/archive/2006/05/200849163030410307.html
One bowl serves many
By Rachel Shabi
Israeli and Palestinian artists have joined forces
to send a message of reconciliation.
Their exhibition, which opened on Saturday, drew
more than 2,500 people to at the
Offering Reconciliation showcases the work of more
than 130 Israeli and Palestinian artists, who took part in the project for the
Bereaved Families Forum for Peace, Reconciliation and Tolerance.
The group hopes to spread its message to a wider
audience through art.
"To reach a different people, you need different
mediums," says Aziz Abu Sarah, one of the forum
directors. "Even people who disagree with our message were able to come to
the exhibition and see what we are doing."
The exhibition features artists such as Menashe Kadishman, Dani Karavan and Mohammad Said Kalash alongside emerging talents.
One bowl
Each artist was given an identical ceramic bowl
from which to create their work.
"The bowl is connected with the basic gesture of
feeding, or giving," says Dafna Zmora, one of the exhibition curators. "It is
something that contains a message or an idea."
Some artists smashed the bowl and presented a work
from its pieces. Others built sculptures with the bowl as a base or used the
bowl as a canvas for paintings.
"They each took the commission in a personal
direction, each with their own interpretation of the reconciliation narrative
and the elements that derive from it co-existence, pain and loss, fracture and
unity," says Orna Tamir
Shastovitz, who led the initiative.
"Each one of the artists is presenting a special
bowl of reconciliation, a bowl of peace and hope, of art instead of
animosity."
Aliza Olmert,
wife of the Israeli prime minister, contributed to the show. Her plate is
painted black, with the Hebrew words: "Jews do not evict Arabs do not
evict Jews do not evict..." in a continuous loop covering the bowl.
Dalia Riesel, an Israeli
artist, sculpted a pair of human hands emerging from coiled rope onto a
blood-red bowl. The hands are trying to grasp olive leaves, the symbol of
peace, which are scattered on the plate.
"The piece is a woman's womb, covered with rope,
with the hands emerging and trying to reach the olive leaves," says
Riesel. "The leaves are just out of reach, but hopefully the hands will
get there one day."
Political message
Jalal Kamel
depicts a Palestinian man chiseling the word "peace" in three
languages on to a large stone.
The stone is intended as a symbol of
"The message is very clear. The man is writing
peace on the stone, a solid thing in the ground that nobody can take out no force, no state can remove it," the
Kamel was one of the many
Palestinian artists who could not attend the exhibition. He was not granted a
permit to enter
Abu Sarah says only about 20 Palestinians attended the
opening.
"That's the sad part," he says. "The
government claims to want a peaceful solution, and then fights the peaceful
attempts of people such as ourselves."
Future moves
The organisers plan to
take the exhibition on tour, in
The original idea had been to auction the pieces to
raise funds for the project taking reconciliation workshops into Israeli and
Palestinian schools.
However, James Wolfensohn,
who stepped down recently as the special envoy to the Quartet to the
The bereaved families forum
started in 1994 and is made up of hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians who
have lost loved ones in the conflict.
The forum has organised
study days and seminars for adults and dialogue meetings and summer camps for
children.
Just after the start of the second intifada,
the group took 1,200 fake coffins bearing Israeli and Palestinian flags to the
UN office in
"We wanted to show that people dying is not just
a number," says Abu Sarah.
At the opening of this latest show - which, according
to the museum drew one of its largest attendance figures - visitors crowded to
see the display of bowls, often lingering over a particular piece.
"When I heard that there are people who were willing
to sit and speak and work together, I had to come and see their
exhibition," says Sarah Breitberg-Semel, a
curator and lecturer from Tel Aviv.
"It is so much the opposite of what is happening
on a political level. I can't tell you how much of a strong impact that has on
me."