Soft landing in Ayn Hawd
August 23, 2008
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The tickly prickly pears of Ayn Hawd
Two days ago I arrived in Ayn Hawd, to start producing my farmer’s market installation for the One Land project and Platform Paradise exhibition. In 2004 the Palestinian village of Ayn Hawd received widespread recognition when architect Malkit Shoshan (NL/IL) initiated an international architecture competition to develop a forward-thinking masterplan for the village. An underlying notion behind the competition is the issue of Israeli zoning laws and planning practice used to express non-kosher political ideologies. From 1948 when the villagers were expelled from their ancestral location only a few kilometres away, to 2004 when Shoshan initiated the One Land (Two Systems) project, Ayn Hawd had been an illegal, non-existant village, situated in Israel, but subject to an entirely separate set of laws and lack of access to state infrastructure.
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The exploding pomegranates of Ayn Hawd
Now Ayn Hawd is in a state of transformation, all the more so due to the effects of the exhibition and One Land project.
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Yellow dates harvested in of Ayn Hawd
Collaborating with the villagers, my small part in this massive project is to develop a farmer’s market for Ayn Hawd, and I’ve been devoting the days to researching the village’s produce and taking stock of her food products. Olives, pomegranates, figs, kumquat, dates, grapes, prickly pears, passion fruit, peaches, lemons, limes, carob, plums, and pecans, but also herbs: thyme, hyssop, sages, rosemary, lavender, basil, chamomille, eucalyptus, lemongrass, and then there’s the honey, and the flowers, all the things one can make with all of the above ingredients. I’m certain I’ve ommitted more than half of the species, because I don’t recognise them, because I don’t know them, I can’t even see that they’re there.
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Herb garden at restaurant Al Beet in Ayn Hawd
It’s extraordinarily beautiful, with outstanding food and folk. The best restaurant in Israel is run by the mayor’s wife, Safiya and the family, right under the place where we are staying. Al Beet (the house/at home) has an herb garden and fruited terraces with figs and walls of passion fruit. Whoever is doing the landscaping clearly has a basil addiction, but the chammomile is also well represented and of course the ubiquitous thyme and hyssop… it all gets turned into za’atar.
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Pomegranate, grape, rose hips and kumquat in Ayn Hawd
One day in and they’re already overfeeding us, but that was to be expected.
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PLATFORM PARADISE is an art show commissioned by FAST (Foundation for Achieving a Seamless Territory) and curated by Maurizio Bortolotti assisted by Noga Inbar, will open from September 1st to 7th, and continue until November 1st. Invited artists and architects will address the village’s lack of public space (as an ‘unofficial’ place) by interacting with the villagers to improve their living conditions and generate new kinds of common ground. “Platform Paradise is a democratic tool aimed at bringing art (projects) into a specific living space of a community. The lack of cultural institutions in Ayn Hawd creates a new condition in which art is represented and used. In this experimental space a new kind of art projects will emerge” (Maurizio Bortolotti).
The artists will work in the village from 1st Septemebr- 6th September 2008
The opening of the art show: 6th September 2008
The show will be exhibited in Ayn Hawd until the 1st November 2008, some of the projects will remain in the village.
- MUSEO AEROSOLAR, a project initiated by Tomas Saraceno and Alberto Pesavento with communities in Abu Dhabi, Frankfurt am Main, Milan, Medellin (Colombia), Tirana, and now Ayn Hawd.
- TODAY, a video installation by Ali Kazma
- MERSTRUKTUREN by Yona Friedman
- THIRD LAND by Map Office
- A VIDEO INSTALLATION by Dan Graham
- UNTITLED by Nico Dockx and Helena Sidiropoulos
- THE ROAD MAP video installation by Stefano Boeri/Multiplicity
- MARKET DEVELOPMENT by Debra Solomon
- APPEARANCES by Berend Strik and Nisreen Abu Al Hayja with the Community of Ayn Hawd
Platform Paradise press release: low resolution (1.7 mb pdf)
Platform Paradise press release: high resolution (9 mb) pdf)
Restaurant Al Beet in Ayn Hawd, the best Palestinian food in Israel
Website devoted to providing the histories of the unrecognised Palestinian villages
Interesting website article about Israel’s unrecognised villages on Cult Case
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Map Office’s One Land garden installation in Ayn Hawd
debra at 14:36 | | post to del.icio.us
welcome to the land of milk and honey,
I am sure there are some pine cone nuts to found on the ground somewhere
Comment by liora — August 25, 2008 @ 8:17
Are Map office there? Please say hello to them, for me.
JohnT
Comment by john thackara — August 31, 2008 @ 17:06