‘In 1999 several settlers complained to the military of bad reception on their cellphones as they drove round a bend on the highway, Road 60, leading from Jerusalem to the settlements in the northern West bank. In response, the cellphone provider, Orange, agreed to erect an antenna in the area. The settlers pointed to an elevated hilltop overlooking the bend as a potential site for the mast. The same hilltop had been the site of previous – unsuccessful – settlement attempts: three years earlier settlers claimed that the summit was an archaeological mound under which the biblical town of Migron was buried. Sample excavations unearthed nothing older than a small Byzantine village, but the hilltop was named ‘Migron’ regardless. Two young settlers occupied the hill, living in converted shipping containers, but, with no prospects of being able to develop the site, left after a short time.
The hilltop, its slopes cultivated with figs and olives, was owned by Palestinian farmers from the villages of Ein Yabrud and Burka who were shepherds there. According to the emergency powers invested in the Israeli military, however, the construction of a cellphone antenna could be considered a military issue, and could therefore be undertaken on private lands without obtaining the owners’ consent. Following a request by Orange, the Israel Electric Corporation connected the hilltop to the water system, purportedly to enable the construction work.
Because of delays in the masts construction, in May 2001 settlers erected a fake antenna and received military permission to hire a 24-hour on-site private security guard to watch over it. The guard moved into a trailer at the foot of the mast, and fenced off the surrounding hilltop; soon afterwards, his wife and children moved in and connected their home to water and electricity supplies already there. On 3rd March 2002, five additional families joined them, and the outpost of Migron formally came into being. The outpost grew steadily. Since families were already living onsite, the Israeli Ministry for Construction and Housing built a Nursery, while some donations from abroad paid for the construction of a synagogue. Migron is currently the biggest of the 103 outposts scattered throughout the West Bank. By mid 2006 it comprised of around 150 people perched on the hilltop around a cellular antenna.’
The installation of the fake mobile phone antenna in this tale marks the beginning of what eventually becomes total foreign occupation of a small territory. ‘Art of Occupation’ focuses on this abstract snapshot of cultural growth by challenging each of the artists exhibiting to do the same: to occupy their space.
Carefully chosen because their different working practices already address issues of space and/or cultural agenda, each artist brings their own personal incite into what will be a playful investigation into the serious concepts of occupation laid out in the tale above.
Sharon Rothbard mentioned, ‘the most explosive ingredients of our time, all modern utopias and all ancient beliefs (are contained) simultaneously and instantaneously, bubbling side by side with no precautions’.
The work exhibited will come from lengthy negotiations between each artist, looking at how their work integrates, as well as how they mark their own and each others territorial space within the gallery. These conversations become part of a process that engenders and becomes part of the work itself. ‘Art of Occupation’ aims to investigate and reflect relevant issues of origin, occupancy, space and cultural growth facing an artist working in London today.
"..occupied territories should be seen as kind of ‘political plastic’, or as a map of the relations between all the forces that shaped it.”
For further information/interviews please contact:
Becky Bellman, Media Hubb • e: becky@mediahubb.co.uk • t: 0207 736 4004
