Summer Camp, 2007
One channel video and sound installation
DVD
DVD
Duration: 12"00
Sound by Paul Dessau and Daniel Meir
Sound by Paul Dessau and Daniel Meir
Edition 2/5 + 2 A.P.
Exhibitions
2010 Yael Bartana, Moderna Museet Malmo, Malmo, Sweden
2009 Anabasis. The Rituals of Homecoming, City of Dialogue, POLAND
2009 Pop Up! Ludwig Forum for International Art, Aacen, Germany
2009 Sommer Contemporary Art Gallery,Tel Aviv, Israel
2009 Engholm Engelhorn Galerie, Vienna, Austria
2008 P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, NY, USA
2008 The Greenroom: Reconsidering the Documentary and Contemporary Art (Part 1), CSS bard Hessel Museum, NY, US
2008 Imaginary Coordinates, Spertus Museum, Chicago, USA
Out of Place, curated by Noah Simblist, Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin, Texas, US
Yael Bartana's two channel video installation Summer Camp shows the activities of "The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions" (ICAHD); their actions consist amongst others of rebuilding Palestinian houses in the occupied territories. In the summer of 2006 Bartana filmed a group of ICAHD volunteers consisting of Palestinians, Israeli and various other nationalities, assisted by Palestinian construction workers, who were trying to rebuild in the village of Anata (east of Jerusalem) the former house of Abu Ahmed Al Hadad at exactly the same location where it was demolished by the Israeli authorities at the end of 2005. The result is a phenomenally edited 12 minutes image and sound composition in which Bartana uses the same stylistic devices as the Zionist propaganda films from the first half of the twentieth century. It refers directly to Helmar Lerski's film 'Awodah' from 1934-'35, proclaiming the dream of a Zionist state, which is projected on the second screen.
