Notes on an Opening

JERUSALEM SHOW IV - EXHAUSTION

There is a woman with a laptop in a huge room. She is performing in sound to accompany the sunset over Jerusalem from the top floor of the Padico building in the heart of the Old City. The room is full but seems somehow empty because most of the people are standing or sitting around the edges. It’s as if they are reluctant to intrude upon the beauty of the floor. The room fills with the softening light from the pale orange sky. From every arched window a panoramic view of the Old City. The sounds go down gently with the sun. 

Sarah Faruki, Light Composition (2010)

Sound Installation

Up on the roof Jack Persekian introduces the 4th Jerusalem Show. He talks about the theme, Exhaustion, and about the walk that 100 or so people are about to take to 8 venues through the darkening streets of the Old City. It’s very hot for six o’ clock in the evening. “Not even the weather is normal anymore” says somebody. Before starting off, the 100 go down in small groups to the damp basement where a video projected on to the wall shows a man shovelling sand relentlessly from one pile to another. It's a task that never progresses. The wall is rounded, damp slightly crumbling. The shape and texture becomes part of the film.

Taysir Batniji, Impossible Journey

Video documentation of Performance, 2002-2009

Next we arrive at the Spafford Children’s centre and the interior of the building is again an amazing thing to see. The tiled floors, the huge rooms, the stone, the doors, the details. A video. A girl hangs upside down as the camera alternates between her view of things and our view of her. The rain pours down and soaks her and still she hangs. A fire is lit behind her and still she hangs. Normal things happen – cats playing, taps dripping – and still she hangs. 

Bahar Behbahani, Suspended (2007) 

Video

Another video. Looking down on soldiers marching in formation. Up and down. Turn around. Up and down. Turn around. In the shade. Out of the shade. Back in the shade. Back out of the shade. Hats off. Hats on. Off. On. Repeat. But the choreography of this battalion is not precise. You wonder if they are really soldiers or if it is just their own weariness.

Khaled Jarrar, I Soldier (2010)

Video 

Someone unlocks the big door to the Austrian Hospice of the Holy Family. It is already starting to feel like a privilege to be seeing the interiors of these buildings. Like being granted access to a secret manuscript but for this community it's normal. It's theirs. Another beautiful room. Tiled floors. Richly decorated walls, dark wooden doors and painted ceilings. Another video. This one is like watching Ophelia trying to prevent herself from drowning.  And we are only at the third venue.

 Raeda Saadeh, Drops (2010) 

Video