Jayson Massey
November 29, 2023
On November 9 at the InLiquid Gallery of the Crane Building in Olde Kensington, a closing reception was held of La La Lil Jidar: 20 Years Behind the Apartheid Wall. The intention ofLa La Lil Jidar, per Aisha Mershani, Ph.d, Lead Artist and Project Director, is to “build awareness around the truths of Palestine for a mainstream audience, and to essentially reframe the narrative”. [1]
The artist’s work is not directed related to the current war between Israel and Hamas, where, according to NBC News, over 1.7 million Palestinians have been displaced in Gaza, and the death toll is over 14,500 after weeks of Israeli attacks. [2] Mershani points out in WHYY News that “we are not seeing images of the grief and pain of the Palestinians inside Gaza or the West Bank. We are not seeing the indiscriminate bombing campaign or the people experiencing extreme violence on a daily basis.” [3]
This collection of photos attempted to show the wall separating Palestine from Israel over two decades. The exhibit consisted of four themes: Then and Now, Violence and Resistance, the Wall, and Portraits. The photos were complemented with audio clips, designed to allow Palestinians to voice how the apartheid wall has affected them.
Per La La Liljidar, Israel started building the apartheid wall in the early 2000s under the pretense of protection and security. The wall is up to 26 feet high and runs 280 miles long, roughly the distance between Philadelphia and Boston. The wall, which is still under construction, illegally steals Palestinian land, constricts the liberty of Palestinians, segregates communities and families, and does economic damage to everyday Palestinians.
Israel uses illegal settlements to complete Palestinian land theft. While Palestinians live under a system that limits their access to land, over 400,000 Jewish settlers get to live unmolested in illegal outposts, destroying Palestinian farmland and grazing areas to build roads to connect settlers back to Israel. This is illustrated in the “What She’s Seen”, where the wall and an Israeli settlement separate Palestinians from their lands and the beach, which used to provide fishing jobs. [4] Palestinian access is severely limited by 600 Israeli-controlled checkpoints. So limiting in fact, that “in 2005, [a] Palestinian woman, Nivin, was forced to give birth to her child at a checkpoint after being denied passage to the Al-Quds hospital by Israeli soldiers.” [5]
From 2003 to 2013, the point of Dr. Mershani’s photography was to show the horrors of the racial segregation on the Palestinian people. [6] Since then, the La La Lil Jidar collective has worked to provide this most urgent view from the ground. Palestinians worked to locate and contact 2004 and 2005 photography subjects and get consent to photos and testimony being used for this project, while activists and artists in Philadelphia used the material for activism. In addition to being a photographer, Dr. Mershani is an Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Gettysburg College, where her academic work merges with media activism.
[1] La La Liljidar. (2023, September 27). Home. https://lalaliljidar.org/
[2] Israel-Hamas war live updates: Source says there will be a truce extension; details being finalized. (2023, November 27). NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-hostages-rcna126751
[3] 20 years of Palestinian life in the West Bank on view at InLiquid gallery. (2023, October 12). WHYY. https://whyy.org/articles/palestinian-life-west-bank-documentary-photography-inliquid-art-gallery/
[4] Riash, A. A. (2023, August 23). Gaza fisherfolk can only ‘dream of fishing freely’ under Israel’s blockade. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/23/gaza-fisherfolk-can-only-dream-of-fishing-freely-under-israels-blockade
[5] La La Lijidar. (2023, September 5). Restricting movement. La La Lil Jidar. https://lalaliljidar.org/glossary/restricting-movement
[6] Gettysburg College. (n.d.). Interdisciplinary Studies. Academic Programs. https://events.gettysburg.edu/academic-programs/interdisciplinary-studies/faculty/employee_detail.dot?empId=09811447720013349&pageTitle=Aisha+Mershani
