Kratsman’s Voyage to an Imagined Community: the Case of al-Arakiv
Kratsman voyage to the Bedouins temporary village of Al-Arakiv (in the Northen Negev of Israel) during in the summer of 2010 is indeed a telling one; it's a journey to a community with almost no properties[i].
Although Hardly found on the maps of Israel, the People of El-Turi tribe occupy the lands of al-Arakiv with intervals for over 9 decades now. This fact does not prevent the Israeli authorities from treating them as if they represent a non-entity. Facing Kratsman images we are obliged to ask ourselves what are we looking at; Is this a non-existing or an imagined community?
Kratsman's commitment to political and sociological schisms, those which tear the Israeli society apart, was the main motivation for his journey. In contrast to most of the Israeli photographers that hardly deal with these topics he does not ignore controversial issues and looks straight in the eyes of members of the Bedouins community. His isolation from the hectic life of Tel-Aviv city in order to give testimony to life out of the secular Israeli bubble is rare and creates the conditions for a meaningful work of art.
All about us tells the story of the periphery of the Israeli society. We are facing the edge of legitimacy, the margins of the Israeli story. It also tells us the story of human beings in general and those who live in (or out) Israel in particular.
This fascinating journey by the leading political photographer active in Israel today, takes us in a time-tunnel back to some of the best precedents of Socio-political photography. It reminds us of projects by the legendary fathers of this media; August Sander's People of the 20th century and Dorothea Lange's depictions of the great depression. Traces of more controversial projects, such as Leni Riefensthal's The last of the Nuba are also apparent here. The former Nazi filmmaker was among the first to use photography as a tool in the process of portraying a community.
What makes Kratsman's project so intriguing is the fact that beyond the homage he pays to certain pivotal figures in his field of creation, one may clearly conclude from his work that he is a contemporary to such artists as Roger Ballen and Dian Arbus's Family Albums, which share some characteristics of his subjective gaze.
The nature of Kratsman's work is fragmentary and discontinuous. It holds no linear narrative. This quality harmonically fits the subject of his photography. It allows his lens to introduce the viewer with more then the mere physical appearance of the nomads, like a collection of timeless forensics. Greater concepts regarding their existence are apparent here; The time leaps the photographs incorporate – in relation to one another – gives a feeling of exhaustion: A state which the photographer clearly sees as the mental state of the residents of Al-Arakiv in light of the constant shifts from construction to destruction and all the way back.
Kratsman is looking far beyond a simple depiction of a society. These are images that shape a collective memory. In the case of All about us we are confronted with photography that preceded sociology and politics, one that indicates, in instinct, the potential political tension which may derive in the future from the group it portrays. That's what makes the nature of this creation so great.
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Traces of an imagined community are apparent in the images. Like phantoms, they appear and disappear in the same spaces. At a given moment, we are facing a tiny tent built with tin and wood sticks. At another, we are facing a pile of ruins. Hardly any visible traces are left of this world of nomads. We are looking at the faces of vagabonds, a reality which is beyond any poverty line. A place which no GPS is equipped to find, A no-man's land. In Al-Arakiv democracy hardly exists and a slippery slide towards anarchy seems to be inevitable.
The people of El-Turi tribe are hard workers. They wear simple clothes, which once belonged to the inhabitants of Tel-Aviv. They look straight at your eyes, as if they have nothing to hind. The women are covered with a veil but it fails to filter their anger. The images take us on a journey of remains, of what remained from the last evocation. One object here. A memory there. A community of real people, yet imagined.
Kratzman-Exhibition (4.94 MB)
[i] This text was first published in German and English in: Micki Kratsman. All About Us. Strenberg Press, 2011