Benji Boyadgian
Phatasmagoria of drones
Bethlehem 2015. Under a pixel sky, a complex urban landscape: tombs (including Rachel’s), separation wall, roads, checkpoint, urban fabric, refugee camp, settlement, ‘traditional’ landscape.... Few images of this contested territory are available to the public. A cloud hovers over ‘Bing’, bird’s eye views can’t be modelled, and ‘Google car’ can’t cross the checkpoint.
A monochrome drawing, soulless. A thorough drawing, a wink to pictorial maps, an attempt to write this place: a psycho-geographic performance to unfold the vision of an imaginary drone.
Phantasmagoria of drones. In the centre, Rachel’s tomb, a shrine for the three monotheistic religions. An Ottoman period building adjacent to a Muslim cemetery. For some, the tomb of Bilal ibn Rabah, for others, Rachel’s. Up to then, a ‘shared’ religious space.
Sited in the ‘West bank’ of the Jordan valley, militarised after 1967. Following regular confrontations during the 80’s and 90’s around the tomb, fortified in 1996. In 2003, the building of the Wall sank deep into the built fabric, methodically encircling the access to the fort. The landscape is disfigured, and the tomb, sanctuarised to extremes, has become exclusively for the Jewish vocation. This device, a witness to the so called security measures exercised by Israel on the Palestinian territories: from the mise en abyme to the abyss of separations...a funerary metaphor.