Green Lines, 2013

artist’s book, published by Pork Salad Press and Point

A series of postcards sent from a post office in occupied East Jerusalem to Nicosia, September 2012.

On a visit to Bethlehem I was given a tour of the Narrative Museum, in the basement of the Peace Centre on Manger Square. We entered from a back street into a series of dimly lit rooms, recently designed and filled with the latest museum display technology. The Palestinian curator led us through the empty vitrines, while describing the stories and objects that will be presented there in the future. The one historical artefact already in situ was a column of building rubble, which, as far as I remember, he said had been excavated when the site was refurbished. It clearly illustrated several periods of occupation in the history of Palestine; a vertical slice starting with Roman remains at the bottom, followed by the Ottoman period and topped by the British Mandate. After the tour, the curator apologised for being so brief and returned to yet another meeting with the project’s international partners, in order to argue over untold stories from the current occupation that might one day fill the empty vitrines.