Hassan Beck Street on the Corner of Abu Lughud
Hassan Beck Street on the Corner of Abu Lughud
Manshia Quarter –
Marking the Manshia Quarter on the lawns of
Ronen
September 26 – 29, 2007
(The public is invited to join and mark with is from the morning until dark)
Project Opening Event:
September 29, Saturday Chol Hamoed Succoth, 16:00
With the help of soccer field marking equipment, Ronen Eidelman marks out the grid of streets and houses of the Manshia Quarter. The marking is done near the sea, on the border between present day Tel Aviv and Jaffa, on the grassy lawns of the Charles Clore Park, while families from Jaffa, laboring immigrants from Neve Sha’anan, students from Florentine and yuppies from Neve Tzedek sit around, play soccer and barbeque. A group of people dressed in white is practicing yoga; while brides and grooms are being photographed with the setting sun in the background.
The Manshia Quarter is buried deep beneath the grassy lawns of Charles Clore Park. It was established in the seventies of the nineteenth century as a Muslim suburban neighborhood of Jaffa. After 1948, Jewish immigrants, most of whom were Holocaust survivors, came to the quarter which had been destroyed during its occupation by Etzel. In the middle of the sixties the quarter was totally demolished and in its stead the Charles Clore Park was built.
Eidelman brings the streets and houses of Manshia up to the surface. The white lines delineate the quarter that lies under the grassy lawns of Charles Clore Park – the streets and buildings – the ghost of Manshia. The markings, made with white lines, are reminiscent of police markings at a murder scene, in this case the murder of the houses, the architectural murder, the cultural murder of Jaffa. At the same time he speaks in the language of soccer and the lawns of the park and the current use of it nowadays. The lines in the soccer field are quite clear; however they do not interfere with the traffic. Similar to the borders of the soccer field, Eidelman redefines the boundaries of the Manshia Quarter without constituting an obstacle or hindering the present day life that continues to carry on in Charles Clore Park; he only made a mark that must be taken into consideration.
In the framework of the “Autobiography of a City” project run by the Ayam Association – Understanding and Dialogue (RA) www.jaffaproject.org
With the assistance of the Tel Aviv – Jaffa Municipality’s Culture and Arts Division, Department of Arts / and the Israeli Center for Digital Art in Holon
Project website: www.jaffaproject.org/events
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:08 pm
looks like a cool project and http://www.jaffaproject.org is supercool:)