Works on paper
Image size 22cm x 30cm

Unsettled Ground revisits a personal photographic archive of images I made in Israel and Gaza between 1997 and 1998. By printing these, revising them, layering them, re-scanning these historical documents onto paper and then layering them with casein, gesso, chalk, charcoal and paint, the work transforms from the cold, mechanical nature of photography into a contested palimpsest shaped by time and touch. The intervention is very personal to me. Materials often associated with whitewashing become a domesticating cleansing palette—a slow, physical act of maternal nurturing and soothing. Through the time-consuming process of building up layers, the original, and ongoing awfulness of the conflict is held and absorbed, transcending the immediate visual evidence. The resulting images are a direct, material confrontation where memory meets empathy in which I attempt, revisiting this work as a mother of young adults now rather than as a young adult myself documenting the conflict, to nurture this painful work into a form that offers the viewer a space for contemplation and reflection beyond the immediate tragedies.