Ground Truth: Testimonies of Destruction and Return | Forensic Architecture (Goldsmith University, London) & Al-Araqib

Principal investigator: Prof. Eyal Weizman, Project coordinator and lead researcher: Ariel Caine, FA | Exhibition curator: Debby Farber , Zochrot

Project partners: Hagit Keysar (Public Lab), ActiveStills (Oren Ziv, Yotam Ronen), Prof. Oren Yiftachel, Miki Kratsman.

llery - Click here to watch film about the project

Zochrot is pleased to invite you to Ground Truth – the launching exhibition of an ongoing research project. The project, an ongoing collaboration between the inhabitants and Popular Committee of Al-Araqib, the Forensic Architecture independent research agency at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Zochrot. The centerpiece of the project is a geographic mapping platform that facilitates the collection, documentation and production of historical, legal and material evidence that map historical remains of Al-Araqib villagers’ sedentary settlement on their land – a moment before they vanish.

Destroyed and rebuilt over 130 times in the past seventy years, the Palestinian-Bedouin village of Al-Araqib has become iconic of the broader struggle of so-called “unrecognized villages” outlawed by the Israeli government, at the northern edges of the Naqab/Negev. Since the Nakba, Israel has promulgated a system of laws enabling it to easily dispossess the Bedouins, adopting a labyrinthine legal logic that denies the vast majority of the Bedouins the ability to hold on to their land. Large swathes of Bedouin lands have been handed over to agencies designed to promote the Judaization of the Negev/Naqab, ignoring its indigenous past. In particular, these state and quasi-state agencies ignore the property laws and land tenure system that have governed the area for generations, with the agreement of both the Ottoman and British authorities.

The exhibition presents the research products, and elaborates on them thorough a series of gallery meetings and seminars, as follows:

* Meeting and discussion on the opening night, Thursday, August 9, 2018, 19:00-22:00 with families from Al-Araqib, Adv. Michael Sfard, Adv. Carmel Pomerantz, and Prof. Gadi Algazi.

* Hands-on workshop and seminar on Operative Models, Friday, August 10, 10:00-13:00 with Ariel Ken (Forensic Architecture), Miki Kratsman, and Shabtai Pinchevsky and Dr. Hagit Keysar (Public Lab)

* Talk with Nuri Al-Uqbi (Al-Araqib) and Debby Farber (Zochrot), Saturday, August 25, 2018, 11:00

* Seminar on Forensic Aesthetics, Wednesday, August 29, 19:00-21:00, with Prof. Eyal Weizman and Ariel Caine (Forensic Architecture), Oren Ziv (Activestills), Film Director Rachel Leah-Jones and artist Taliah Hoffman.

Foresnic Architecture team: Franc Camps-Febrer (Platform Design and Development), Lachie Kermode ((Platform Design and Development), Samaneh Moafi (Film), Guillaime De Vore (Researcher), Nathan Su (Researcher), Sebastian Tiew (Researcher) | Aerial Photo Al-Araqib 1949-2016-2017 Video: Hinda Weiss | Research assistants: Rana Gnayem, Lotte Bjerg-Thomsen | Graphic Design: Tamar Bar-Dayan | English Trasnlation and scientific editing: Ami Asher | Arabic Translation: Glogcal Translations 

Click here for the Facebook event.

Opening: Thursday, August 9, 19:00 | Closing: Saturday, September 1

Gallery opening hours: Wed, 11:00-14:00, Thu, 16:00-19:00, Sat, 11:00-14:00

Address: Binyamin Gallery, 5 Shvil Hameretz St, third floor, Tel Aviv
Gallery opening hours: Wed, 11:00-14:00, Thu, 16:00-19:00, Sat, 11:00-14:00
For more details, please contact debby: debby@zochrot.org