Interventions is an exhibition of works that have been conceived, directed and photographed by a group of youths that came together at the Museum as part of an ongoing artistic initiative under the leadership of Artists Eytan Shouker and Ruba Alfaraouna. Students from Youth Village Desert Stars and Mevo’ot HaNegev High School that took part in the project come from two communities – one Bedouin and the other Jewish. The occasion of establishing the sites of the two schools in close proximity (once the construction of the permanent facility for the Desert Stars School will be completed in Beit Kama, where Mevo’ot Negev is already located) is an opportunity to create a dialog between the students who are destined to be neighbors. However, the commencement of this dialog within an ethnographic museum setting, the collections of which are these days being considered for relocation to (Bedouin city) Rahat, imbues that dialog with relevant vitality, an active intervention enabling observation of the museal institution, with its permanent exhibitions and its modes of presentation of the Bedouin community, raises the question: how does the majority determine the mode of presentation or imaging of the minority?
To prepare, the students took part in a series of introductory study sessions, under the guidance of Shouker and Alfaraouna, which were intended to expand their knowledge of modes of representation in culture and art in general and through photographic art in particular, as a tool for expression and reflection. Through the tools they acquired, the students deconstructed (but also shed) prejudices and stereotypes. The exposure to practices of intervention in the exhibition prepared them for directing themselves in the run-up to the photographic work. The Intervention in the exhibition was double: first of all the students produced the photography in the permanent exhibition’s dioramas (three-dimensional models set against a background simulating reality) and afterward they placed the photographs within them. Alongside the dioramas that had been updated, curator texts were posted, which combine the participants’ standpoints and thoughts, and which clarify their photographic choices.
There is diversity in the students’ interventions; they take their inspiration from the collection of items on display in the permanent exhibition and from the ways in which they are exhibited. These interventions are all critical, sometimes toward the community itself with their prevailing gender practices while occasionally they are a lament of the loss of their traditional values or they can express defiance against incidents of violence. Thus for example, Yaseen Abu Alkean chose to have his picture taken posing with a rifle he found in the permanent exhibition of “Everyday Items in Sinai”; to the rifle barrel he tied a white ribbon, symbolizing a call to silence these weapons and put an end to any violence, wherever it may be. At the same time, critical interventions have also been directed outward and toward museal concepts which impose their world view on the minority group. Yakot Alamour has chosen to substitute the expressionless museal display mannequin installed in the “Shig” (women’s tent) and in fact in numerous ethnographic museums – with the very tangible presence of herself, and with a photographic image of herself. The choice, on the part of all the students, to be photographed in cotton gloves, was intended to protect the items during the photo shoot; those serve the museum’s restorers, shining a light on restoration and installation practices still prevalent in canonic ethnographic museums, and particularly in this museum. However, beyond the utilitarian role of the gloves, they arouse an interest in the role of the museum. Is it destined to continue in the passive preservation, storage and display of the artefacts of Bedouin culture – or is its role to instigate a lively conversation on current issues, to initiate and function as an agent of intervention in the social-local sphere and to courageously engage the respective communities and provide a platform for their voice? Such containment is an echo, of sorts, of the Bedouin practice of hospitality, a key value in Bedouin tradition, identified primarily with the Maq’ad, the open structure dedicated specifically to unconditional and altruistic hosting of the desert traveler. Sager Abu Aaduba chose to have his picture taken inside the Maq’ad, preparing coffee on a modern camping burner; “The means have changed”, he says, but not the tradition or the values. The photograph of Maryam Abu Shareb and Yuval Ovadia together is an image responding to the permanent agricultural display. It encapsulates an imaginative look at the values of working the land in the cultures of the two communities. Yuval, who identified with the image of the Bedouin peasant, as portrayed by Maryam, chose to present herself as the pioneer Kibbutznik, examining the Jewish collective memory in contrast with the Bedouin memory. This seemingly unassuming look is subjected to the majority rationale, which sometimes is inconsistent with the interests of the minority population. And the observer may wonder, does the museum tell of, and represent, the minority Bedouin community – or will its perspective always be subsumed within the evolution of the collective narrative (as a national story) and in a manner that preserves the structuring of cultures and minority identities?
Following a joint tour of Bedouin and Jewish towns which are home to the participants (documented in the exhibition), the discussion of what separates between us, what brings us together, desired versus reality – goes on. And the emerging conversation, one might hope, will be engaging and will extend beyond the Museum’s confines.
