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Three Cities Against the WallThree Cities Against the Wall' THREE CITIES AGAINST THE WALL TO OPEN NOVEMBER 9, 2005 NEW YORK – Artists from three separate but vitally interconnected communities will participate for the first time in a one-of-a-kind art show that opens Nov. 9, 2005, in Ramallah, Palestine; Tel Aviv, Israel; and New York City. Three Cities Against the Wall brings together 56 painters, sculptors, filmmakers, and graphic artists united in opposition to the “Separation Wall” that Israel is constructing in the Occupied Territories of Palestine.Participating artists, many of them internationally recognized, have contributed a wide range of works that movingly convey the conditions imposed by the Wall and the emotions and visceral responses it provokes. Some participants, Palestinian and Israeli, live daily with the conditions imposed by the Wall. Others have traveled extensively in Israel and occupied Palestine, absorbing the reality of the Wall and its disastrous impact on hundreds of thousands of Palestinians' lives. Three Cities Against the Wall also represents a hopeful development for the future of the Palestinian and Israeli peoples. Each artist has contributed three works to the show, one to be displayed in each city. In the two years they have been planning the exhibition, the artists and activists involved have built networks and created relationships that will sustain a long-term cultural network that opposes Israel's oppression of the Palestinian people. In New York, Three Cities Against the Wall is organized through ABC No Rio, a community center for the arts on the Lower East Side, by a committee of artists and activists. In Ramallah, Tayseer Barakat, founder of the League of Palestinian Artists and curator of the Gallery Barakat, and Suliman Mansour, director of the Wasiti Art Center in Jerusalem, are organizing the exhibition. And in Tel Aviv, the project is organized by a group of artists and activists associated with the Israeli Coalition Against the Wall, Ta'ayush, and Anarchists Against the Wall. Three Cities Against the Wall will run for one month in all three locations. For more information, visit the Three Cities Web site at http://www.abcnorio.org/againstthewall/. QUICK FACTS... Who is participating? Why and how did Three Cities Against the Wall come about? When? Where? What kind of works will be featured? Will a catalog be available? How can I get involved or contribute to Three Cities Against the Wall? OUR VISION: A WORLD WITHOUT BORDERS Yet while American, Palestinian, and Israeli artists are showing their work together in this exhibition, we understand that the relationship amongst them is not one of equality. The relationship between Palestinians and Israelis has been compared to that between prisoners and guards, with U.S. cittizens as the patrons of this prison. Americans finance Israel through their tax dollars; some also finance Israel through contributions to Zionist organizations. The Wall is horrifying because it casts these relationships in concrete, making Palestinian imprisonment more thorough and more permanent. Ironically, there is also an opportunity created by the Wall: this physical barrier makes the oppression of Palestinians more visible. Artists can use the Wall as a metaphor to educate the public. We are working together because we understand that, by uniting our voices, we are more likely to be heard and will therefore be better able to inform the public of the true nature of this catastrophic situation. We also want to demonstrate that within the Israeli and the American public there is opposition to the Wall. We are laying the foundation for building a community of artists across borders, and will demonstrate, through combined effort, our opposition to injustice and oppression on moral and ethical grounds, and because injustice and oppression engender a separation between peoples, preventing normal human communication between them. We believe that the world of the future is a world without borders. We support the right of a Turk to work in Germany, of a Haitian to seek refuge in the United States, of a Croat to live peacefully in Serbia. Thus we also support the right of a Palestinian, a Jew, or anyone else to live in the city of their choice, to enjoy all the privileges of citizenship there, and to travel freely to and from their chosen place of residence. This is not a radical demand but a natural human expectation. The attempts of 20th century governments to control demographics through genocide, forced transfer and other coercive means have been a disaster and such policies must be discarded. It is tragic that at a time when governments in Europe are discussing the possibility of open borders, Israel is building a border of cement and steel. We oppose the Wall because it is a wall against the future. Press Contact: Information and Resources About the Wall: Direct Action Palestine International Solidarity Movement International Women's Peace Service Jews Against the Occupation Middle East Children's Alliance The Palestine Children's Welfare Fund Al-Awda - The Palestine Right to Return Coalition Electronic Intifada: News and views on the Wall Gush Shalom - The Israeli Peace Bloc Indymedia Israel Palestine News Network The Palestinian Environmental Non-Governmental Stop the Wall: The Grassroots Palestinian Washington Report on Middle East Affairs |
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