Road from Qalqilya (from the series Road Shots) | Public Studio
2014
14.5 x 22 inches (16.25 x 23.5 inches framed)
Edition of 20, 3 APs
ABOUT THE ARTWORK
Road Shots is a series of photographs tracing the political landscape that remains at the core of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Following our film installation Road Movie, about the segregated road system being built by Israel in the West Bank (aka Palestine), we photographed the superhighways for (Jewish) Israeli travelers only and a set of tertiary roads for Palestinians. The Israeli roads connect settlements in the West Bank (Palestine) to Israel and sever the West Bank into three distinct areas, rendering impossible a viable future state. Palestinian roads are often dangerous curving roads, routed around the Israeli superhighways creating the most indirect route for travel and convenience.
The photographs are laser-cut with patterns created in architectural software and take their cue from Islamic architectural ornamentation. Geometry in Islamic architecture was a way in which to order the world derived out of a passion for stars. The constellations in the sky above were a way of navigating and understanding the earth below. The geometry found here in these screens mimics that of the stars above but is also used as an ordering device and as a way of mapping the occupation. The insistence of the line here is also that of “lines being drawn” into landscape—such as the 1984 Road Plan originally mastered by the Israeli military—as demarcations of ownership and as matrices of control. The patterns are reminiscent of contemporary “fences” (that appear endlessly in this landscape) as well as an architectural history embedded in the land, a lexicon that is consistently being erased. The photographs reflect the fragmentation that is at the base of the Occupation but also offer us a potential for redress—a recuperative harmony through form and geometry.
—Public Studio
ABOUT PUBLIC STUDIO
Public Studio is Elle Flanders & Tamira Sawatzky (and sometimes others). Flanders is a filmmaker and artist who holds an MA in Critical Theory and an MFA from Rutgers University and a PhD from York University. Tamira Sawatzky is an architect and artist who received a BA from the University of Winnipeg and an March from the University of Manitoba. As Public Studio they create large-scale public art works, lens-based works, films, and immersive installations. Grounded in the personal, social, and political implications of landscape, their multidisciplinary practice engages themes of political dissent, war and militarization, and ecology and urbanization through the activation of site. Public Studio often works in collaboration with other artists and has completed public art projects in Toronto, Tel Aviv, Prague, London, and elsewhere.
Selected solo exhibitions: “What We Lose In Metrics,” Art Gallery of York University, Toronto (2016); “Migrant Choir” (with Adrian Blackwell), Venice Biennale (2015); “Drone Wedding,” Ryerson Image Centre Media Wall, Toronto (2014); “What Isn’t There,” Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto (2011), Zochrot Gallery, Tel Aviv (2012)
Selected group exhibitions: “Form Follows Fiction: Art and Artists in Toronto,” Art Museum at the University of Toronto (2016); “I Stood at the Source,” Blackwood Gallery, Mississauga, Ontario (2016); “Still (the) Barbarians: EVA Biennial,” Limerick, Ireland (2016); Incheon Biennale, Incheon, South Korea (2011); “The Typhoon Continues and So Do You,” Flux Factory, New York (2011)
Selected film screenings: Rotterdam International Film Festival (2015); Toronto Urban Film Festival (2014); Plug-In Centre for Contemporary Art (2013); Berlin International Film Festival (2013); Toronto International Film Festival (2011); Museum of Fine Arts Boston (2010)
2014
14.5 x 22 inches (16.25 x 23.5 inches framed)
Edition of 20, 3 APs
ABOUT THE ARTWORK
Road Shots is a series of photographs tracing the political landscape that remains at the core of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Following our film installation Road Movie, about the segregated road system being built by Israel in the West Bank (aka Palestine), we photographed the superhighways for (Jewish) Israeli travelers only and a set of tertiary roads for Palestinians. The Israeli roads connect settlements in the West Bank (Palestine) to Israel and sever the West Bank into three distinct areas, rendering impossible a viable future state. Palestinian roads are often dangerous curving roads, routed around the Israeli superhighways creating the most indirect route for travel and convenience.
The photographs are laser-cut with patterns created in architectural software and take their cue from Islamic architectural ornamentation. Geometry in Islamic architecture was a way in which to order the world derived out of a passion for stars. The constellations in the sky above were a way of navigating and understanding the earth below. The geometry found here in these screens mimics that of the stars above but is also used as an ordering device and as a way of mapping the occupation. The insistence of the line here is also that of “lines being drawn” into landscape—such as the 1984 Road Plan originally mastered by the Israeli military—as demarcations of ownership and as matrices of control. The patterns are reminiscent of contemporary “fences” (that appear endlessly in this landscape) as well as an architectural history embedded in the land, a lexicon that is consistently being erased. The photographs reflect the fragmentation that is at the base of the Occupation but also offer us a potential for redress—a recuperative harmony through form and geometry.
—Public Studio
ABOUT PUBLIC STUDIO
Public Studio is Elle Flanders & Tamira Sawatzky (and sometimes others). Flanders is a filmmaker and artist who holds an MA in Critical Theory and an MFA from Rutgers University and a PhD from York University. Tamira Sawatzky is an architect and artist who received a BA from the University of Winnipeg and an March from the University of Manitoba. As Public Studio they create large-scale public art works, lens-based works, films, and immersive installations. Grounded in the personal, social, and political implications of landscape, their multidisciplinary practice engages themes of political dissent, war and militarization, and ecology and urbanization through the activation of site. Public Studio often works in collaboration with other artists and has completed public art projects in Toronto, Tel Aviv, Prague, London, and elsewhere.
Selected solo exhibitions: “What We Lose In Metrics,” Art Gallery of York University, Toronto (2016); “Migrant Choir” (with Adrian Blackwell), Venice Biennale (2015); “Drone Wedding,” Ryerson Image Centre Media Wall, Toronto (2014); “What Isn’t There,” Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto (2011), Zochrot Gallery, Tel Aviv (2012)
Selected group exhibitions: “Form Follows Fiction: Art and Artists in Toronto,” Art Museum at the University of Toronto (2016); “I Stood at the Source,” Blackwood Gallery, Mississauga, Ontario (2016); “Still (the) Barbarians: EVA Biennial,” Limerick, Ireland (2016); Incheon Biennale, Incheon, South Korea (2011); “The Typhoon Continues and So Do You,” Flux Factory, New York (2011)
Selected film screenings: Rotterdam International Film Festival (2015); Toronto Urban Film Festival (2014); Plug-In Centre for Contemporary Art (2013); Berlin International Film Festival (2013); Toronto International Film Festival (2011); Museum of Fine Arts Boston (2010)
2014
14.5 x 22 inches (16.25 x 23.5 inches framed)
Edition of 20, 3 APs
ABOUT THE ARTWORK
Road Shots is a series of photographs tracing the political landscape that remains at the core of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Following our film installation Road Movie, about the segregated road system being built by Israel in the West Bank (aka Palestine), we photographed the superhighways for (Jewish) Israeli travelers only and a set of tertiary roads for Palestinians. The Israeli roads connect settlements in the West Bank (Palestine) to Israel and sever the West Bank into three distinct areas, rendering impossible a viable future state. Palestinian roads are often dangerous curving roads, routed around the Israeli superhighways creating the most indirect route for travel and convenience.
The photographs are laser-cut with patterns created in architectural software and take their cue from Islamic architectural ornamentation. Geometry in Islamic architecture was a way in which to order the world derived out of a passion for stars. The constellations in the sky above were a way of navigating and understanding the earth below. The geometry found here in these screens mimics that of the stars above but is also used as an ordering device and as a way of mapping the occupation. The insistence of the line here is also that of “lines being drawn” into landscape—such as the 1984 Road Plan originally mastered by the Israeli military—as demarcations of ownership and as matrices of control. The patterns are reminiscent of contemporary “fences” (that appear endlessly in this landscape) as well as an architectural history embedded in the land, a lexicon that is consistently being erased. The photographs reflect the fragmentation that is at the base of the Occupation but also offer us a potential for redress—a recuperative harmony through form and geometry.
—Public Studio
ABOUT PUBLIC STUDIO
Public Studio is Elle Flanders & Tamira Sawatzky (and sometimes others). Flanders is a filmmaker and artist who holds an MA in Critical Theory and an MFA from Rutgers University and a PhD from York University. Tamira Sawatzky is an architect and artist who received a BA from the University of Winnipeg and an March from the University of Manitoba. As Public Studio they create large-scale public art works, lens-based works, films, and immersive installations. Grounded in the personal, social, and political implications of landscape, their multidisciplinary practice engages themes of political dissent, war and militarization, and ecology and urbanization through the activation of site. Public Studio often works in collaboration with other artists and has completed public art projects in Toronto, Tel Aviv, Prague, London, and elsewhere.
Selected solo exhibitions: “What We Lose In Metrics,” Art Gallery of York University, Toronto (2016); “Migrant Choir” (with Adrian Blackwell), Venice Biennale (2015); “Drone Wedding,” Ryerson Image Centre Media Wall, Toronto (2014); “What Isn’t There,” Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto (2011), Zochrot Gallery, Tel Aviv (2012)
Selected group exhibitions: “Form Follows Fiction: Art and Artists in Toronto,” Art Museum at the University of Toronto (2016); “I Stood at the Source,” Blackwood Gallery, Mississauga, Ontario (2016); “Still (the) Barbarians: EVA Biennial,” Limerick, Ireland (2016); Incheon Biennale, Incheon, South Korea (2011); “The Typhoon Continues and So Do You,” Flux Factory, New York (2011)
Selected film screenings: Rotterdam International Film Festival (2015); Toronto Urban Film Festival (2014); Plug-In Centre for Contemporary Art (2013); Berlin International Film Festival (2013); Toronto International Film Festival (2011); Museum of Fine Arts Boston (2010)