Time Suspended Press ENG

PRESS RELEASE TIME SUSPENDED Herman Asselberghs, Els Opsomer, Pieter Van Bogaert & TRANSIT Taysir Batniji WORK IN TRANSIT November 7, 2004 – January 9, 2005 Opening: November 6, 5 p.m.

In November 2002, three artists and critics from Brussels (Asselberghs, Opsomer and Van Bogaert) journeyed to Palestine for a ten-day visit. The knowledge they possessed about the unresolved conflict between Israel and Palestine was about as much as any westerner who watches news on TV and reads newspapers. On arrival though, they witnessed first-hand the complexities of daily life in the region, a reality that does not fit into slick media sound bites. Two years later, they have published a book on that journey, with photos and texts: TIME SUSPENDED. The trio have put together an exhibition for WORK IN TRANSIT, using the same title. New individual works engage in a dialogue with film and video works created in the last few decades of the twentieth century. A video archive brings together works about the Palestinian situation by Jean-Luc Godard, Johan van der Keuken, Amos Gitai, Eyal Sivan, and others.The clash between works from the past and the present enables the clarification of a personal perspective from engaged outsiders. The works on show diametrically oppose the familiar media hype and sketch the 'timeless' nature of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Today, at the end of 2004, everything but nothing seems to have changed in the ongoing crisis. 1948, 1967, 1987, 1993, 2000: a never-ending parade of dramatized moments with devastating consequences for Israeli and Palestinian citizens. The images from the past are the images of today. Military prowess, armed resistance, check points, road blocks, houses destroyed, bloody murderous attacks, fatherless sons, motherless daughters, Sharon and Arafat. They may be the same images but they hit harder, are more harrowing and heinous. Pressure is rising and at the same time everyone is on hold in the waiting game.

Waiting for a passport; waiting at the border; waiting in the transit zone; waiting at the check point; waiting for the next curfew. Waiting for the next attack. For the next reprisal. The reprisal in return for the reprisal.

Waiting for a political solution to resolve this side, the other side, no side, all sides. And finally, waiting for it all to pass. As if time were suspended.

For TRANSIT, Taysir Batniji photographed his journey to the Gaza Strip in 2004: via Cairo airport and the endlessly waiting in the open-air transit zone near Rafah until the moment when the Israelis give back your passport and permit you to the Gaza Strip. The work Transit that is presented in the exhibition is a reflection on the extremely difficult conditions under which Palestinians must travel.

Exhibition design: Ann Clicteur.

For further information about the exhibition please contact Witte de With or visit: www.wdw.nl.

You can download some high resolution images from www.wdw.nl/persfoto/Time-Suspended.

Opening hours: Tuesday – Sunday, 11 a.m – 6 p.m.

Admission: € 2.30 (entrance to Witte de With and TENT.) Discounts: MJK / Rotterdampas € 1.10; <16 free Witte de With, center for contemporary art, Witte de Withstraat 50, 3012 BR Rotterdam tel. +31 (0)10 411 01 44, fax +31 (0)10 411 79 24, e-mail: info@wdw.nl