Keren Benbenisty

A collage, a series of 26 works on paper, two-channel video-animation on 12” inch screens, 2019/2021

Based on historical printed matter, archival materials, and contemporary geographical data, this body of work recalls the relationship between typography and topography through the concept of revolving, a recurring element in my work emphasizing change (from the Latin word revolver).

Following the rules of Verlan, a type of French slang, the text on the 12” x 12”  collage – “faJaf” – reverses the syllables of “Jaffa,” an iconic and politically charged brand of oranges that is also the name of an Arab city that has now been absorbed into Tel Aviv, to produce a meaningless word that, like an erasure mark, signifies an attempt to correct.

Digital prints of the 26 maps made by Palestine Exploration Fund between 1881 and 1887 as part ‘The Survey of Western Palestine’ were manually coated with dry blue oil pigment that was rubbed onto the paper. Every place whose name has been changed since the maps were produced is marked with an orange peel that is glued to the paper and covers the location in question. Gestures of erasure and mark making blur the scientific data underpinning the work of the cartographers and transform earth into sky; the maps become abstract images, closer to celestial charts. 

The title of the work is taken from a book that accompanied the Survey and that provides the translation and meaning of all Arabic place names appearing on the maps. The techniques of printing, marking, and erasing echo the methodical and thorough efforts that took place (and continue today) to Hebraicize Arabic place-names in Israel. Erasure of local histories and identities of the place has long been part of the Zionist project and has served to imprint the ideology on the land.

 

Untitled XIV, Archival digital print, Prussian Blue dry pigment, orange peels and glue (detail)

Untitled XIV, Archival digital print, Prussian blue oil pigment, orange peels and glue, 26″ X 32″ in.

 

Untitled XIII, Archival digital print, Prussian Blue dry pigment, orange peels and glue, 26″ X 32″ in.

 

Untitled XII, Archival digital print, Prussian Blue dry pigment, orange peels and glue, 26″ X 32″ in.

 

Untitled X, Archival digital print, Prussian Blue dry pigment, orange peels and glue, 26″ X 32″ in.

N. E., Two-channel-video animation, 6’20, loop