In Israel, Palestine installation, Eni envisions peace, glorious humanity

It is often said that war and conflict always provide fuel for, perhaps, the most potent forms of artistic imagination. The unprecedented bloody battle now between Israel and Hamas is also leaving a mark on streets around the world.

From murals and mosaics to digital paintings and political posters, artists in the world over are reacting to the war. Thus, reechoing the adage that art should disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed.

In this region with 5,000-year-history of people fighting for land, artists from both Palestine and Israel have been depicting their reality and their desire for peace. Their art is the catharsis to trauma inflicted by the intense conflict in the region. Their works talk of displacement from home, torture, violence, and occupation, but still, the underlying message is that of peace.

There is a deep desire to tell the world of their pain and their history, which is driving the artists to work even under excruciating circumstances.

Last month, Eduardo Castaldo remodelled a ‘Just Do It’ Nike advert into a pro-Palestinian poster, titled, #ResistTheOccupation. Basketball player DeMar DeRozan was turned into a Palestinian street fighter, while his basketball was painted over and turned into a Molotov cocktail.

For Emmanuel Eni, popularly known as Blackman in European Kitchen, his Israel and Palestine Peace Restoration Performance, an Installation piece, is a renewed interrogation of his interest in the conflict that has divided the world.

He believes Israel and Palestine conflict is a key war, which is showing the extreme banality of humanity. “It is a war that is a mirror of all other wars at this point in time. One can learn about the variance of allegiance and their ways of calling their shots, which places all states in a position of war, if Palestine and Israel do not join,” he quipped.

According to him, “the current crisis in the Middle East raises the need for a remodelling. Already, the show will tour Europe in coming days.”

In 2006, he featured at the Dak’art biennale with ‘Israel and Palestine’, which became comprehensible when it was performed. He said the inspiration behind the work has not changed.

His words: “Israel and Palestine wars and conflicts are examples that could apply here in my desire to draw attention to the crisis all round Africa. In my installation, the concrete, visual presence of the colossal dynamite contraption wall is to confront the viewer and bring them face-to-face with happenings of the war, instead of the safe distance of the news from television and radio.”

Israel and Palestine installation and the restoration performance is one of the evergreen works of Eni. It is an installation of 200 petrol canisters with explosive-like attachments.

It has featured in many art biennale, art galleries and several museum shows. “The sculptural installation is variable. It is the impression of a dance between the two to join,” he said.

According to him, the remedy for this Middle East war, which is showing the “extreme of proximity, especially when beliefs and religion differ in a state,” is through a dance.

He continued, “in my innocent younger years, when I first heard, felt and saw what the war was, the issues that came up matter made me develop an agitation with a unity of properties: old used petrol canisters retired from a famous European country’s army.”

He said the agitation made “me twist some paper and metal pipes in making a noxious, though non-lethal bomb, titled: ‘Israel and Palestine’. Its literary exploitation is to bring the Middle East war nearer to all who don’t want to be near it, especially those who make war. My childhood reminiscence developed a rhyme, like the implicit pattern that this war follows, which led me to my conviction that the avenue to peace for Israel and Palestine is through the performance of dance of the two warring partners. This moving picture of long protracted conflict of the two is a focus pressing the peace restoration of Israel and Palestine.”

On the vision of the dance, he said: “Featuring the flags of Israel and that of Palestine, the two wave their flags in frenzy and calm manner, buffeted by skirmishes and clashes. The flags engage each other in strikes and counter strikes in alternating wars.”

He said the dance ritual, a part of the installation, appeared a vile conflict projected by beliefs, religion as well as the prize: The light of the Land and the conquerors dream. “In the prancing movement, the dance progresses through the performers hands. In my performance, the actual breakout of war, after peace negotiations failed, leaves the other performers in a state of hopelessness. The Israel and Palestine peace restoration performance (dance) climaxes, in a rather sublime manner, as the dancers roll up, both flags of Israel and Palestine, tying up in a dance movement that calls the two to join.”