Sharon Paz

| Video Installation, 2014 || Single Channel HD, 3:43 Minutes |

The video deals with borders in their function as political and territorial markings and the violation thereof. Black, gridded shadows at the beginning of the work are revealed to be grilles, doors, and fences placed behind one another. They are slowly pushed to the side with a metallic squeak to reveal the view of a border crossing. Here, a security official examines the bags and passports of those waiting, then allows them to cross. At borders that serve to mark cultural differences, there are different emigration laws depending on nationality, appearance, religious background, and language. By locating the scene specifically at Lion’s Gate, one of the many accesses to the fortified old city of Jerusalem, through which trade was carried out, where people arrived in the city, and the Israeli Army passed through in the Six-Day War (1967), the border in the video stands as a synonym for the clash between strategies of security, the experience of a lack of freedom, and enduring armed conflicts.