<underfire> Intimacy

[caleb waldorf]

I would like to insert into the conversation on behalf of Rula  
Halawani a series of images from a work titled "Intimacy."  The  
images and description of the work are below.
-Caleb

Intimacy



These series of photographs were taken at the Qalandia checkpoint.  
This body of work examines and captures the experience of the  
checkpoint which has become a hallmark of the current Israeli  
occupation. There are very few faces among the collection of images;  
rather we are invited to view a multitude of close-ups of encounters  
between soldiers and Palestinians wanting to cross the border.

One of the distinctive characteristics of the Israeli occupation is  
its highly personalized quality and the particular way in which it  
invades and penetrates the private space of individuals. At 'the  
checkpoint' there are no privileges, everyone waits in line, and is  
reduced to an ID number, and everyone is searched and questioned. It  
is these qualities and aspects that are conveyed in my photographs,  
in particular the repetitive inspections of papers and personal  
belongings. However, what is intriguing about the photographs is how  
they document the subtleties of the encounters between two anonymous  
parties. In the images we see different gestures of waiting and the  
postures of human bodies placed in an unequal power relationship. Via  
the close-ups, we get a sense of people's different moods -  
tiredness, anxiety - and the nuances of the way each person responds  
to questioning at the checkpoint.

Shown through fragments, this series of photographs carries a  
multitude of narratives on the experiences of Palestinians at  
Qalandia. In a sense, when looking at the images, you can hear the  
echo of people's voices as you imagine the all too familiar dialogues  
that take place. I accentuate the issues of repetition and the  
differences between each separate encounter by the recurrence in this  
series of the large slab of worn stone that marks the site of  
exchange. In many of my photographs, it is given particular  
prominence and takes on a symbolic quality marking nearness and  
distance at the same time, it becomes the one fixed element or prop  
in this absurd theatre. Imposed on the landscape, it marks the place  
where the ritual of authority is performed and the place of contact  
with the other.

The particular angle I used in my photographs shows the experience  
and phenomena of the checkpoint in all its mundane and chilling  
detail and documents how power in the modern days is exercised and  
inscribed on individuals.

-Rula Halawani
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://underfire.eyebeam.org/pipermail/underfire/attachments/20061209/78eec298/attachment-0001.html 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 01.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 29008 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://underfire.eyebeam.org/pipermail/underfire/attachments/20061209/78eec298/attachment-0004.jpg 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 03.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 26957 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://underfire.eyebeam.org/pipermail/underfire/attachments/20061209/78eec298/attachment-0005.jpg 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 08.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 34566 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://underfire.eyebeam.org/pipermail/underfire/attachments/20061209/78eec298/attachment-0006.jpg 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 14.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 26510 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://underfire.eyebeam.org/pipermail/underfire/attachments/20061209/78eec298/attachment-0007.jpg