This Line is a series of sculptures made out of the very buoys that for years delineated the border between Israel and Jordan in a specific stretch of the Jordan River called Kasr el Yahud. The ludicrous frontier that was established between Jordan and Israel after 46 years of belligerence was, as a matter of fact, appropriated by the artist when, in 2019, she convinced the rangers of the Israeli Civil Administration who take care of the site, to exchange the original floaters with new ones that she would provide. The original line of demarcation was therefore removed from its original location. The artist then cut the rope and shaped the different segments with common plastic restraint turning them into a series that bring to mind the organic minimalist works of Eva Hesse.  A paragraph from the Israel-Jordan peace treaty is reproduced as part of the work. It strives to define a clear-cut line of separation without defining the status of the territory, as it states that the “Israeli” side, is actually not even Israel, but the part of the territories occupied in 1967. 

With this strategy of “removal”, Littwitz highlights the specific cultural and political values a symbolic object had gained from its shape and setting, manifesting the difference between a “concept” and the object that is supposed to embody it, and thus questioning precisely the sovereignty of those same concepts. In This Line, she appropriates the frontier itself to put into question its state-sanctioned relevance.

From: Ella Littwits, Facts on the Ground, Mousse Publishing, CCA Tel Aviv S.M.A.K, 2021

Photo Credit: Eyal Tagar