Route 60
"Route 60" is an historical path, that runs through the hills of 'Judea and Samaria' area from the ancient times of Abraham. It connects between the past and the present, bringing together and separating worlds that exist side-by-side, but never meet.
I went out on route 60 with a quest of finding the root cause of this conflict.
Working as an Israeli based photojournalist, I covered many spot events of the local conflict. Yet it has not provided any answers for me.
Not interested in news style coverage, I avoided taking images of single events, taken out of their time line. My goal was to take a step above and penetrate the philosophical dimension of conflict’s reality.
Wandering back and forth on “The Way of the Patriarchs”, I talked to Jews and Palestinians. My eyes learned about their daily routine and the ears listened to their Ideals.
The visuals I found along the road reflected both - Palestinian Authority and Israel as fictive Ideas.
Born in the Soviet Union, I came to Israel in the 1992. A year after my motherland, along with its Utopia, disappeared from the world maps and seized to exist. At the time, -The Jewish Sate in the land of Patriarchs, where Jews were able to build a full-grown country, safe from Anti-Semitism, seemed like a perfect dream. A new Utopian world was calling me.
During my mission journey of route 60, the image of Israel I had in mind was falling apart. The idea of the land I came to was slipping thru my fingers.
The goal of this project became to capture the Absurd. In the Utopia worlds on both sides, my heroes author their own definitions and meanings for the land they inhabit. Locked in “bubble realities”, my protagonists reflect nostalgia of high Ideas, which deny real circumstances.
The Idea of possible compromise exists in the realm of Logic but dwells as Utopia in the uncompromising reality.
As I wonder the Road 60 metaphor, witnessing the jealous love to this Holly Land, I absorb that any solution would require painful re-rendering of "utopia" on both sides.
P.S. Myself included… I need to find some new Ideals to cling to. A new Utopia would be good as I defy accepting the lie of the land…