Mona Hatoum, Present Tense (1996)

01.02.2024

“It’s really a map about dividing and controlling the area. At first sign of trouble, Israel practices the policy of ‘closure’; they close all the passages between the areas so that the Arabs are completely isolated and paralyzed … The Palestinians who came into the gallery recognised the smell and the material instantly. I saw the soap as a symbol of Palestinian resistance. The map looks like hundreds of little islands with no continuity or territorial integrity amongst them.”

(Mona Hatoum interviewed by Michael Archer, in Mona Hatoum, London 1997, pp.26–7.)

Photos:

1, 4 – Installation view at Gallery Anadiel, Jerusalem. © Mona Hatoum. Courtesy Gallery Anadiel, Jerusalem (Photo: Issa Freij)