Joret Ed Dahab

Joret Ed Dahab, Jenin, April 2002

Joret Ed Dahab, means the hole where one can search for gold.

 

Power

Stockholm 2002-09-01

What’s in my power? As the human being I am, born into a specific life situation, in a country: Sweden, in my profession: visual artist… what do I experience, what do I see, what do I react on? How come there’s a feeling that ones time is not free? That freedom of thought doesn’t cohere with freedom of act. What is it like to be occupied by something that has been forced upon you? What happens a person living in a country that is occupied? It’s not just that the land you walk on, the air space above your head and the water resources, are controlled, but also your communication with others, those who are outside the check points where you need specific laisser passé to go to work or take your children to school… Also your movements of thought become limited. As Waleed, a friend in Palestine, expressed it ”My mind is occupied”, ”I have no time to think about anything else than survival”.

In December 2001 I went to Palestine for the first time, together with my colleague Ana Valdés, to – according to the invitation – make contacts and formulate ideas for a future cultural exchange. We have the belief that cultural arenas are spaces where different perspectives can be presented and discussed in another way than in media and in the political discourses. Last spring the emails from our contact persons in Palestine got more and more desperate. Ramallah was under siege, and now also Jenin was struck, they needed help and witnesses to what was happening there. Ana and I went to Palestine and spent April 20 – 23, 2002 in Jenin. In media one is informed about what is happening through numbers, but we met persons, of course. The counted dead and wounded and those who survived have names, they are somebody. They all have a name and they have relatives and friends.

In June we published a web site http://this.is/Jenin showing 450 photos, a number of recorded stories told by people who lived in the camp. There is also a detailed map on the site showing every house, which were destroyed and those possible to repair. Now, as I am writing this, more homes and quarters have been destroyed after several new raids

Even in democratic countries in peace it seems to be, and I wonder how come, a communication gap between people and the elected politicians, who have been given a mission and therefore can, change structures in the society. Do we really trust the ones we elect? Do the ones we elect trust us? The question is: Do we really wish each other well?

Seven Israelis dead and fiftyfour wounded in the blast of a suicide bomber in Jerusalem. An invasion of tanks in Nablus is the revenge, more dead, but now Palestinians. Everyone in Israel and Palestine has someone close who have been attacked. One month after the publication of our web site I get an e-mail from a man in Canada who asks me if I hate Jews. His e-mail is aggressive, I wonder if I really should answer it.

From: ”Daniel” To: ceciliaparsberg@yahoo.com Subject: Curious??? ”I was just curious why you don’t just admit the truth that you are Nazi scum? I’m certain if you had lived around 60 years ago you would have raced over to Aushwitz and Treblinka to join in on the fun. I hope evil cunts like you get cancer and have a painful lingering death.” He ends writing his full name and address.

I answered: ”Your mail to me is violent. Why? You are in Canada and have the possibilities to raise questions how we all can live together in this world. As my friends, both Israelians and Palestinians, I don’t exclude people because of their sex (as you do in your mail to me) race, religion or colour of skin. We can all live together if atrocities stop, violence is not used anywhere (so I think you should stop using it, to speak is to act). Cecilia.

Two weeks later he wrote to me again: From: ”Daniel”, To: ceciliaparsberg@yahoo.com Subject: My apologies if you construed my previous mail as violent., however….. My nasty e-mail to you previously was simply an example of the sort of visceral response I have towards people whom I perceive, in all honesty, as being very similar in certain key respects to people who tortured and murdered several members of my family. I was just curious why you don’t boycott people who do this: An explosion at Hebrew University in Jerusalem kills 7 and injures 80+. Police say the blast is a terror attack. Is it because you simply hate Jews????? Yours truly, Daniel.

I answered that I don’t hate Jews, that we all are individuals and we can’t accept to be packaged in groups like: religion, nationality and so forth and that there are many Jews who discuss this, for example the organization ”Not in my name” http://www.nimn.org . In war people become anonymous, but each of us have a responsibility for how we act towards our neighbour. Activists around the world organize, many of them young people, arguing and acting for human rights, that every human being should have the right to affect and change the life situation he or she is born into. I also wrote that I admired the organizations ”Bat Shalom” and ”Women in black” in which Israeli and Palestinian women cooperate and help each other to handle every-day-life situations, like: Israeli women meet up and take care of Palestinian children when they are going to school, so that they don’t have to wait for hours at a check point. I think these women should have a place in the politics because through their actions they show possibilities to solve conflicts.

During the nineties a slogan circulated: ”The personal is the political” and thus the general. My work was then about sexuality and borders between the sexes. Sexuality is one of our driving forces we use in our creativity and in contact with others but is acted out in a private sphere. Sexuality has become something we demarcate and often should hide. Sexuality is often exploited commercially, the Porn Industry is said to be the worlds biggest industry, and that is not strange, because the pornographic image is about something that everybody indulges in as much as they desire. But how can one allow an ”industry” to create so many preconceptions of the female and male body, or a state? Propaganda works this way, by creating images that occupies our mind until we make them our own.

How can I accept to become a passive receiver of this? In a society there’s a need for people who stir ”our perception” – the way we look upon things. The Porn industry would have too great an influence on the representation of sexuality if there weren’t other images concerning sexuality, in our education, at Maternity Clinics, in the Fine Arts, in the fashions and so forth. Within each of these areas images are made and they all reflect a contemporary understanding of sexuality. Images give us information, images reflect and speak to us. Suddenly all images of the photo models wearing wide jeans is being generally accepted and becomes a part of our conception of what we think is looking smart. In the same way we ”understand” a certain type of music because we are not alone and isolated in the listening, it’s played here, there and everywhere and we hear it unconsciously, get used to it and then likes it partly because we recognize it. We communicate with each other direct and indirect.

A contemporary artist has the power to connect the images made to the impressions images make, to see the relation to history, source, reference and visualize a future. These connections span a vast and limitless zone. (One has to be able to demarcate a certain area, a context, to be able to really understand and mediate what one sees, this is happening within each person.)

The title of my piece is ”Joret Ed Dahab, means the hole where one can search for gold”. The large photograph was one of the 500 photos I took in Jenin and the only one I took because I saw something beautiful. When we walked inside what was left of the house, passing a set of stairs, there was a remarkable light and I turned around to be in it. The light came through holes in the wall and ceiling and through the window I saw a landscape of houses, an infinite landscape of shadows and voices. The borders dissolved, the holes shone and I saw how fragile they were, all these borders we build on, as castles in the sand, traces of a game that is no longer played. Mohammed Abualrob has written Joret Ed Dahab in Arabic on one of the paper sheets. This is the original name of the place, the part of the refugee camp in Jenin, which was destroyed in the beginning of April 2002. Mohammed grew up in Jenin and he is since February 2002 studying in Uppsala, Sweden, in the course ”Peace and Conflict”. I have made a drawing of his text. These drawings are an important part of the work. I don’t know how to write in Arabic, it means it’s not possible to understand another person’s situation, but it’s possible to imagine or feel it.

This work is exhibited at Botkyrka Konsthall, Sweden, 14th of Sept-3rd of Dec 2002
Fischer Gallery, Seattle, 11th of November-14th of December 2002
Reset Gallery Philadelphia, February-March, 2003
Edsviks Konsthall, Stockholm, March 2003
AAO Gallery, Tokyo, March 2004

Botkyrka Konsthall, Botkyrka, Sweden, 2002

The world’s smallest bible thrown in the biggest man-made hole


The replica of the world’s smallest bible is made by bookbinder and rastaman Jabulani Dube from Kimberley, South Africa. . (150X80 C-print, analog panorama-negative)

The piece is comprised of:
– A replica of the World´s Smallest Bible.
– A photo of the original in Stensele Church, Sweden
– An edited video (4: 33 mins) of the action, the 8th of May 2000. The bible is dropped from a light aircraft into The Big Hole in Kimberley, Cape Province, South Africa. (Click here to see the film)
– A photograph (150X80) of bookbinder Jabulani Dube with the bible in his hand

In April, 2000 when I first visited South Africa I met Jabulani Dube. He worked at a bookbindery. I asked him what it means to be a rasta and we ended up having a long discussion about religion. He also told me he grew up in Kimberley, a society founded on De Beers diamond trading (Boers) and that The Big Hole is the biggest man-made hole in the world and that it was digged by black people. I replied saying that the smallest bible in the world is in Stensele church in Sweden, I asked him if he could make a copy of this man-made book. After a long conversation we agreed that this copy of The smallest bible in the world should be unwritten because life is all about ”writing it every day in one’s actions”. He and his little daughter followed me to Kimberley. We went in a light aircraft and dropped the bible in the hole.


The Big Hole is claimed to be the largest hole excavated by hand. It has a perimeter 1,7 km, deph of No 1 shaft is 1,100 m. 22.700 metric tons of ground was excavated from The Big Hole by black labour. 14,5 millions carat of diamonds were produced during 1717-1914. The owners of The Big Hole were De Beers company (white people). The mine was active 1871-1914.


The smallest bible in the world (to the right), at Stensele church, Luleå, Sweden. (An ordinary bible to the left)

 

Published first in B A N G Magazine (S), Septemper 2000. Then in Filter magazine among others.

This piece has been shown at:
Market Theatre Gallery, Johannesburg in May 2000
BildMuseet, Umeå, Sweden, 2001
Gothenburg Filmfestival 2011 among other filmscreenings. See CV
Financing through the SIDA project Cultures in Dialogue, initiated and organized by Bild Museet, Umea, Sweden. I worked as a Guest Professor at Umea Academy of Fine Arts and in this project I was invited as a lecturer at the Fine Arts Department at Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg, South Africa, for two months (17 April through 1 June).

This piece was also supported by The Swedish Institute

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Private Business

Private Business

First shown at Schaper Sundberg Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden, August October 1999. Public art agency, Sweden bought the two photographs ”Corner” and ”I can see you but you can’t see me”/”Jag kan se dig men du kan inte se mig” and placed them at the University in Skövde where it caused a lot of discussion involving the Minister of Culture (a long story about art, se below on this page) … the photographs are still there. Another copy of ”Corner” was placed i Umeå at Gender studies. ”I can see you but you can’t see me”/”Jag kan se dej men du kan inte se mej” was shown 2011 in the group show ”Lust och Last”, National Museum, Stockholm, also shown in a touring exhibition Konstfeminism throughout Sweden 2005-2006 (at several exhibition places among them Liljecalchs Konsthall, curator was Niclas Östlind, se boken Konstfeminism Boken och utställningen Konstfeminism fokuserar på olika feministiska strategier i konsten från 1970-talet till idag och lyfter fram konstverk som på olika vis ger och har gett starka avtryck i diskussioner och förhållningssätt till kön, sexualitet, kropp samt till mänskliga relationer. Under 1970-talet intog nya tankar och motiv konstscenen på ett banbrytande sätt. Kvinnor utgick ifrån sina egna erfarenheter och lät dessa påverka konsten och debattklimatet på tvärs mot rådande patriarkala värderingar. Det personliga som politiskt område uppmärksammades samtidigt som det fanns ett starkt engagemang på det globala planet. Även de existentiella frågorna fick en framskjuten plats.

The large size of the prints is necessary to see all the details. They are analog negatives (Hasselblad panorama camera). 

The international egg and spermbank (Analog panorama-negative, C-type print 229X84cm.)
The first photograph, entitled; The International egg and spermbank is of a city and the air space immidiately above it. The air is also an image of an unlimited space, which stems from the fact that many egg and sperm donators and recievers make contact in cyberspace; the collective fertilization space. Cyberspace does not exist as a space, it could however exists as soon as one acts.

Corner (Analog panorama-negative, C-type print ca 229X84cm.)

In Corner we see a cemetery that is very old and lush with greenery. There is a naked man lying on a gravestone and a woman standing on the man’s neck, looking out over the entrance and exit to the cemetery. She has a human heart tattooed on her upper arm. The couple is obviously in a relationship – in relationships there is a constant negotiation and balancing act of trust and power. Private relationships can be life-giving and life-threatening, hence the cemetery. The action in the photograph shows power and takes place in trust, which is sometimes risky. And power and trust also build community in a society. The photograph is called Corner because the corner is the supporting part of a building. There is a building in the background at the top left and it is a library for women’s literature in London.
Or is this Nike that escaped from Zeus’ head?

Ej har Nike med segerkransen
krönt vid flöjtspel och harposlag
perserkonungen, jordens gissel.
Glömd förvittrar hans sarkofag. (Hjalmar Gullberg)

I can see you but you can´t see me./ Jag kan se dig men du kan inte se mig. (Analog panorama-negative, C-type print ca 229X84cm.)

A woman or part of a woman in lush green vegetation. The woman’s head is not visible and her hands make the sign for eyes. The vagina is as big as a face (when exhibited) and looks back at the viewer saying ”I can see you but you can’t see me”. The title suggests The oppositional Gaze (which Bell Hoks wrote about, scroll down and read more about The gaze). The photograph and the title play with the viewer’s gaze and turn it into the viewer being looked at instead, the vagina (gender) looking back at the viewer. In doing so, I wanted to question and play with how women are traditionally seen. There are many places where there is a nude sculpture of a woman in a pond with water, naked, but then she poses in a different way, in a way that is perceived as kind and sweet and beautiful and not so challenging. Here the vagina is isolated and seeing; looking at the viewer. Then there are also those signs that the woman bending backwards makes with her fingers that are signs for eyes. The vagina is not particularly – what can I say – arranged to be attractive, but it is not pornographic either. It is an active female gender, it is she who speaks and says: I can see you but you can’t see me, she speaks to the viewer and does not just allow herself to be passively observed and studied.

The weathergirl (Analog panorama-negative, C-type print ca 229X84cm.)
This photograph was taken in a performance in the backyard of a building where a musician lives. He is recording sounds from the atmosphere via these aerials. The woman has braces (visible when the photograph is at full size). She is a modern witch who tells stories and connects via her braces, rings and antennas. Her words are woven into the radio waves.

The Blue Angel Bar (Analog panorama-negative, C-type print ca 229X84cm.)
This photograph is made at The Angel bar in London; a performance for the camera. The woman is balancing and trying to find her axis and relax, the man she is sitting on is contemplating his childhood. This act affects the whole shivering moving creative structure of the society. The society is made of relationships – every private and intimate as well as public act, by every person, is political.

I love myself and I understand you think I´m difficult.
(Analog panorama-negative, C-type print ca 2,5mX1m.)
The photograph is playing with the viewer’s gaze. It is inspired of J.Lacan’s theories on subjectivity and the mirror stage. (Scroll down to read more about the notion The Gaze)

The fool (Analog panorama-negative, C-type print ca 229X84cm.)
”The fool” is about an inevitable ideal state of mind. Being stupid is a kind of openness. The swan lies quietly in the garbage in its own beauty. It is foolish to build a nest in such a place, but on the other hand: what do you realise you can do, what can you do, do you want to do and what do you do?

 

God is love (C-type print 110 x 70cm)
The photo was placed at the far end of the gallery. The title is on her tatoo.

Scarring is a secret photo.
A documentation of a scarring, with an explanatory text mounted beside on the wall. You have a conception about something, an ideology, you are part of a political discussion etc. An experience can cut the belief behind one’s conception. This is how I work.

About The Gaze
The gaze refers to how someone looks at or observes something. It is a concept used to explore how the gaze shapes our perception and understanding of the world around us and how power and identity are mediated and constructed through the act of looking and being seen. In ’The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators’ (1992), Bell Hooks explores the gaze of the spectator. I have played with the concept of the oppositional gaze aware of how the female body is seen with traditional expectations / the normative spectator, I play with/reverse the spectator and thereby question prevailing power structures. Theories of ’The Gaze’ have contributed to a deeper understanding of self-representation and can be used in discussions about the role of the gaze in art and society, central to visual artists.
Jacques Lacan, psychoanalyst and structuralist, developed the concept of The Gaze (from around 1956) in the context of his theories on subjectivity and the mirror stage. His ideas relate to how individuals perceive and position themselves in relation to others, particularly in the context of the psychoanalytic relationship between the subject and the Other. The gaze of the Other can act as a catalyst for the subject’s desire. The Gaze can lead to a sense of objectification, where the individual internalises the gaze of the Other and forms his or her self-concept from it. Michel Focault has included the concept in his theories of power and surveillance. Laura Mulvey introduced the concept of The Male Gaze and a number of feminists; Gayatri Spivak, Judith Butler, Bell Hooks and others have developed it further. Their work provides different perspectives on how power and identity are mediated and constructed through the act of looking and being seen. Photographers can adopt or challenge ’The Gaze’ to create different emotional and intellectual responses in their viewers.

Så här svarar Kulturministern angående fotot ”Corner” i Skövde.

Fråga för skriftligt svar. Den 20 december

Fråga 2002/03:356 av Yvonne Andersson (kd) till kulturminister Marita Ulvskog om konstnärlig utsmyckning av myndigheter.

Staten byggnader, myndigheter och liknande utsmyckas med stora mängder konst. Konsten ska bidra till en god arbetsmiljö för de människor som arbetar eller vistas i byggnaderna. Konsten köps in av Statens konstråd som ansvarar för den konstnärliga utsmyckningen av samtliga statliga byggnader. Inköpen görs i samverkan med representanter från den myndighet där konsten ska placeras. Självklart är det svårt att göra alla nöjda när det gäller val av konst till en byggnad. Vissa människor kan vara mycket kritiska till en målning eller en skulptur som andra älskar. I vissa fall kan det dock finnas en bred samstämmighet kring ett verk. På Skövde högskola finns i entrén ett målning som många är kritiska till eftersom den ger associationer som inte alla uppskattar. Målningen föreställer en man som ligger på backen, och en kvinna som står på honom. Så många har nu blivit illa berörda av målningen att högskola beslutat att arbeta för att den ska tas bort. Högskolan får dock inte själva ta bort eller flytta den utan detta måste göras i samråd med Statens konstråd. Trots att högskolan tagit kontakt med Statens konstråd och förklarat att de är missnöjda med målningen har inte konstrådet gett dem tillåtelse att flytta målningen.

Vad avser ministern att göra för att öka myndigheternas möjlighet att påverka den konstnärliga utsmyckningen i deras närmiljö?

Svar på fråga 2002/03:356 om konstnärlig utsmyckning av myndigheter. Den 15 januari

Kulturminister Marita Ulvskog.

Yvonne Andersson har ställt frågan till mig vad jag avser att göra för att öka myndighetens möjlighet att påverka den konstnärliga utsmyckningen i deras närmiljö.Frågan är föranledd av en diskussion som förts efter att ett konstverk av Cecilia Parsberg, tidigare professor vid Umeå konsthögskola och en av våra internationellt mest framstående konstnärer idag, blivit placerat av Statens konstråd i entrén till Skövde högskola. Yvonne Andersson menar att många blivit illa berörda av verket och att högskolan beslutat att arbeta för att det ska tas bort, men att Konstrådet inte gett dem tillåtelse att flytta verket.

Jag delar Yvonne Anderssons uppfattning att man ska efterfråga och respektera brukarens uppfattning om de konstverk som ska placeras i den miljö som är en del av deras vardag och jag menar att det är viktigt att finna goda former för samråd så att denna uppfattning på ett lämpligt sett kanaliseras in i beslutsfattandet. Detta samråd bör präglas av öppenhet från alla parter och en ömsesidig respekt för den speciella kompetens man företräder. Men att man, även med, dessa goda förutsättningar, skulle kunna utesluta alla möjligheter till konflikter i ett sammanhang när man diskuterar och beslutar om frågor med koppling till samtidskonsten menar jag är orimligt, om det ens är önskvärt.

Som jag har kunnat inhämta från Konstrådet har de vedertagna samrådsformerna iakttagits i detta projekt. Högskolan i Skövde är ett mindre projekt utan beställda konstverk där man erbjudits möjligheten att föra samrådsdiskussionen genom att verk placerats under en prövotid. Enligt uppgift kommer det nämnda konstverket, som en följd av den diskussion som har förts mellan företrädare för högskolan och Konstrådets projektledare, inte få sin placering i Skövde högskola efter prövotiden. Enligt min uppfattning visar detta att de arbetsformer som Konstrådet praktiserar innebär att brukaren/mottagaren har ett fullgott inflytande över vilka verk som ska placeras i deras arbetsmiljö.

Samtidigt vill jag betona betydelsen av att en verksamhet som Statens Konstråds förmår att föra ut även de senaste och kanske mest krävande konstuttrycken i den offentliga miljön. Detta är en uppgift förenad med vissa uppenbara svårigheter, men som jag menar är central för verksamhetens konstnärliga och kulturpolitiska legitimitet. Dessa konstverk kräver noggranna introduktioner och andra former av uppbackning, men de kräver också ett öppet sinne från mottagarhåll inför det nya och okända.

Det är inte alltid det omedelbara intrycket av ett konstverk som blir det bestående, det är inte heller det mest lättillgängliga och begripliga verket som blir det mest betydelsefulla. Det omedelbara motstånd man kan känna inför något hos ett konstverk kan med tiden visa sig vara det som är dess viktigaste kvalitet. Att betydande samtida konstverk ändå kan visa sig olämpliga att placera i vissa miljöer hör självfallet också till denna bild. Jag har fullt förtroende för Konstrådets förmåga att på bästa sätt hantera dessa svåra avvägningar.

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