Artist-in-Residence – Desiree Palmen 2006

1. How did you first get involved with Al-Ma'mal?
I had done a project in Rotterdam called Streetwise (2002). This was a project featuring film and photographs of ‘camouflage suits’ that enabled people to ‘disappear’ in front of surveillance cameras. There were many surveillance cameras in Rotterdam and this is something that interests me very much. I had a solo show of this work in the Nuova Icona gallery in Venice in 2005, a non profit space run by Vittorio Urbani. Vittorio introduced me to Kamal Boullata. My project was composed of pictures and videos and Kamal said if I thought there were a lot of cameras in Rotterdam then I should see Jerusalem!

He said he thought it would be very interesting to do such a project there and he told me about Al-Ma’mal and told me I could apply to their artist-in-residence programme. To my own surprise I immediately said yes. I actually have a friend in Tel Aviv who a few years before also suggested I should do a project in Israel but at that time this seemed too complex. So I had decided that I should wait for a while. However, this project seemed very clear and very easy so I applied to Al-Ma’mal hoping they would like the project and they did. So I went to Jerusalem as an Al-Ma'mal artist-in-residence in 2006.

2. What were the ideas behind your workshop?
The project was related to being in Venice in 2005 because that was also the Biennale year and I had been invited to participate in a biennale collateral event called Reaction organized by Camilla Seibezzi and Vittorio Urbani. For this I made ‘dummy suits’ which were suits designed to look as if you have somebody with you.

For Italy it was great to design these suits which made the wearer look as if they were accompanied by someone else and especially a child. I had several models who wore these suits and they walked among the public and were camouflaged among the crowds watching the other performance events happening around Venice.

So this idea is what I took to Jerusalem. I asked the young people in the workshop to make a suit that made them feel that they were with someone else. They could choose the kind of situation they wanted to be in with this other person – it could be a fight or a dance or an embrace – they decided. In many cases they had to help each other and this was often done by one person wearing two layers of clothes and getting into the position another student wanted for their ‘dummy’.

So they sometimes had to get very close and sew the clothes together around other people’s bodies or behind their heads. Then the dummy person would slip out of the second layer of clothes and these would then be filled with stuffing. They connected really easily with the work. It was kind of hilarious for the kids to have to sew persons to each other and as well as being fun it was perhaps a legitimate way to break down some of their own barriers and get closer to each other. What was nice was that they all seemed to understand perfectly what the project was without the need for language. I was also helped tremendously throughout the whole project by Jumana (Abboud), Khadijeh (Kananbo) and Raedah (Saadeh) at al Ma’mal.

3. What were the main challenges during your stay at Al-Ma'mal?
The challenge was not with the workshop but with the project I did for my residency. This was a repeat of the Streetwise project in Rotterdam except doing it in Jerusalem seemed trickier because I imagined it was possible I would get arrested for such a project.

The project works on a number of levels. Plain suits are painted so that they are camouflaged in the area overlooked by surveillance cameras. This is filmed by a camera attached to the real surveillance cameras so the video will have more or less the same perspective as the surveillance film.

I had already sent plain white suits to Jerusalem and then I looked for good locations. Kamal was right - the streets in the old city were all monitored. Sometimes I wasn’t sure there were really people watching some of the cameras I found because they looked so old and dusty.

The first lot of suits I painted I used my own camera. For the final photo and video work a friend and professional camerawoman Jutta Tränkle came from Berlin to help. We worked five days very intensively and at the end the police did come.

Being both artist and Europeans made a difference but it’s a tricky thing in this situation. What I found very interesting was how some of the police actually seemed to like the idea of what we were doing. It was also very interesting to see how Israelis and Palestinians connect. Before you go there you think the situation is black and white but the reality and the practicalities are very different. People are in close proximity and in daily contact so they have to find a way of living together.

4. What impact did the experience have on your work?
Underlying this project was an existing and ongoing theme in my work. I am wary of artists just turning up in a situation like this, doing a project and then showing it in a gallery back in Europe. For me it was a repetition of Streetwise in a different environment so it wasn’t just a product of the situation in Jerusalem.

My interest comes from the idea of fear as a selling point that legitimises increasing surveillance. In the case of Europe it is sold as something that is for protection and for the good of the population but it is about control, power and investment. This is something that concerns us all and I think the degree of surveillance in Israel was an indication at that time of where we were heading. So the project helped to develop this idea.

Al-Ma'mal was the first and only time I did a workshop with kids but I have recently begun planning another workshop with young people in Istanbul. It’s not something I usually think about but young people especially like my work so I am hoping to do a similar project next year. The workshop was an integral part of the residency with al-Ma’mal and I think it is a very good thing.

5. What are your strongest memories of your time there?
As I mentioned earlier the thing that struck me most strongly was that all the people in Palestine and Israel ultimately have no choice but to live together. It made a very strong impact. After being there I thought about it all in a very different way from before. I saw the huge connection there between east and west and how much it is all there in European history. I didn’t realise that until then.

It is great that Al-Ma’mal opens the door like this for international artists. It is a very good way to create possibilities for artists whatever kind of work they do.

ARTIST WEBSITE

DESIREE PALMEN