'Three Cities Against The Wall' connects artists across borders BEIRUT : What would it be like to live in a world without borders? The majority of Europeans, whose native countries are members of the European Union, already know. The ease with which your EU passport is waved through with no need for a visa - even with renewed and increasingly stringent security checks in the modern era of terrorism - makes the concept of freedom increasingly a reality. What is that freedom? It is freedom of movement. It is the basic human right for a Palestinian or a Jew or a Turk or a Kurd or anyone else to live in the city of their choice, to enjoy the privileges of citizenship there, and to travel freely to and from their chosen place of residence. There is nothing radical in that. Yet at a time when the EU is expanding and the possibility of increasingly open borders being discussed, in the Middle East Israel has built a new border of cement and steel. It has built the separation wall - illegal according to an advisory opinion given by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague on July 9, 2004. Raising the issues created by the wall, including the oppression of Palestinians and their lack of freedom it contributes to, and protesting against it, are the subject of the art exhibition "Three Cities Against The Wall" scheduled to open simultaneously in Ramallah, Tel Aviv and New York on November 9 and continue for one month. The exhibition will showcase the work of 56 Palestinian, Israeli and North American artists united in their opposition to the wall that Israel has constructed in the Occupied Territories. It has been organized by different activist and artist groups in the three cities - ABC No Rio, a community center for the arts on the Lower East Side in New York; Tayseer Barakat, founder of the League of Palestinian Artists and curator of the Gallery Barakat, and Suliman Mansour, director of the Wasiti Art Center in Jerusalem; and a group of artists and activists associated with the Israeli Coalition Against the Wall, Taayush, and Anarchists Against the Wall in Tel Aviv. Each of the groups established committees to choose the artists who would finally be involved. They include U.S. painters Nancy Spero and the late Leon Golub and cartoonist Seth Tobocman; from Palestine, the organizers Barakat and Mansour are themselves exhibiting painting and sculpture; and from Israel, video artist Galit Eilat, director of the Israeli Center for Digital Art, and the late cartoonist Dudu Geva. As significant as the exhibition itself is the catalogue that will result from it. New York organizers ABC No Rio said that the document, which is produced collaboratively by artists and designers in all three cities, will include essays by well-known Palestinian, Israeli, and American writers about the origins of the show, about the wall and its impact, and about the role of the United States in creating and sustaining the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The result of both the show and catalogue is that a dialogue has been created through art where all the artists and organizers have come together in the face of oppression to use art and culture to oppose that oppression as symbolized by the wall. Apart from the art itself then "Three Cities Against The Wall" shows that symbolically at least, borders can come down. During the two years it has taken to create "Three Cities Against The Wall," the organizers and artists have built networks and relationships between each other, and are using art to unite different cultures working together for justice, equality and peace. ABC No Rio say that their purposes in participating in the exhibition are fourfold: "To unite our voices in demonstrating our opposition to the separation wall; to better inform people about the true nature of the catastrophic situation created by the wall; to demonstrate that within the Israeli and American publics there is opposition to the wall; and to lay the foundation for a community of artists across borders." The irony of "Three Cities Against The Wall," and the communication between peoples it has created, is that it makes more visible what has always been there - the oppression and injustice of the Palestinian people. The wall itself - a physical barrier - has created the opportunity - through art - for this to be seen. Artists from America , Israel and Palestine are using their work to resist a barrier that may well be the most difficult physical obstacle to creating a just and lasting solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Not only does the wall rob and destroy the human spirit, it destroys spiritual and cultural life, which cannot survive under such conditions. Using art to fight it is noble. The future of the world may well be one without borders as globalization and increased communication and technology bring people together, where people are free. "Three Cities Against The Wall," is one step closer to fulfilling that future. For more information on "Three Cities Against The Wall" and the locations where it will be held in New York , Ramallah and Tel Aviv go to http://www.abcnorio.org/againstthewall/ |