“[Lifta is] The only historic, intact Palestinian village. Due to its abandonment in 1948, as result of historic events, it has never been re-occupied, or demolished, thus preserving in the most authentic way all the elements of a hilly, East Mediterranean village. All other similar villages were whether destroyed or continued to be inhabited thus evolved and changed losing most of their authenticity and integrity. The typology of houses in this village presents a variety of traditional housing with no parallels in their state of conservation, authenticity, integrity and variety.”
(from the Tentative List proposed by the Permanent Delegation of Israel to UNESCO).
To speak about Lifta (ליפתא / لفتا), one can choose one of the two main narratives used for virtually everything in Israel/Palestine. A bunch of ruins on a steep hillside is at the same time one of the most tangible evidence of Nakba for the Palestinian people, and an ancient Jewish village with its holy purifying pool for Jews. Neglection is what can be seen by everyone, since graffiti covers most of the walls and there is still no protection and preservation for a site that could potentially become of extreme historical interest. Every roof was destroyed.
De- and re-contextualizing images of the Zionist movement in Israel from the KKL-JNF Photo Archive, new narratives are created and imagined.
Everyone can see what they already think.
7 fiber-based silver prints, inkjet printed cutouts, rubber cement glue
