Masdūd

In 2011 the artist along with the photography department in Bezalel were invited to stay in the city of Ashdod, a port city near Gaza. The artist decided to get out of the city to look for the traces of the Palestinian village which Ashdod was built on, and found out that the only remains are in what is marked as “private property – no trespassing.”

While the surviving traces of the former village retain their power to affect or maybe evoke the past, are they able to produce a new memory? Or do these symbolic documentations limit the power of these traces to produce memory? 

The title of the series is a play on that village’s name, Sdood. Masdud means shut, sealed or closed in Arabic. 

This series was exhibited as part of the department’s group exhibition in billboards around the city of Ashdod and a local art center.

Scanned medium format negatives, various sizes, giclée prints 2011.