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Museum of Contemporary Art – Palestine (CAMP):
The Museum of Contemporary Art (CAMP) was established to relate to one of the core Palestinian experiences – displacement; as well as to account for the growing collection of visual art that has been safeguarded by Al-Ma’mal over the past ten years. There was/is a need to create a lever for new opportunities, innovative thought, and dynamic multi-cultural activity within, and surrounding Palestinian art, culture, and environment. Our goal is to utilize CAMP to relate to Palestine and its rich and multifaceted textures (traditional/ historical backdrop embedded within contemporary ambitions), while encouraging and strengthening international communications as well. We believe that a contemporary art museum must be a flexible, living organism; an expanding space that will facilitate the realization of cultural projects, empower creative individuals of all nationalities, and avoid stagnation that might otherwise act negatively in like developments. For this reason, we envision CAMP’s essence not solely as a physical place (for that would undermine our working philosophy and limit creative potential), but as an authentic, accessible, and fluid entity, a nomadic site where dialogue, growth, and resourceful experimentation are encouraged.
Our project involves the biennial 'nomadic' movement of CAMP, its cumulative art collection and 'portable' structure. Every year, CAMP will find a temporary 'home' under the auspices of a 'host museum.' The 'host museums' – located across the globe – will be invited to interact with CAMP's presence and to initiate projects and exhibitions.
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Scarlett Hooft Graafland
Part-Time Human
2000
Born in the Netherlands in 1973.
Graafland’s exhibitions include: Parttime Human, Gallery Anadiel, Jerusalem (solo 2000). Odradek ,The Populas Gallery, Tel Aviv (2000), and Sculptures of Justice, The Ministry of Justice, The Netherlands (1998).
Scarlett initially came to Jerusalem as part of her continuing art academic studies. During her stay in Jerusalem in 1999-2000, Scarlett became interested in the historical meaning of the city, more specifically, in the three world religions that have their holy places within the old city of Jerusalem. She researched the ‘Jerusalem Syndrome’ phenomena that some travelers, as well as residents of the city experience. Individuals with this syndrome tend to have an idealized view of Jerusalem, and as a result, act in a bizarre and irrational fashion. They are literally intoxicated by the Holy City, and some are even declared temporarily insane due to the extreme measures of their religious beliefs.
In Parttime Human, Scarlett questions issues about ‘the real Jesus’, reacting to the madness on the commerce around his figure, while making references to the same kind of questions people suffering from the ‘Jerusalem Syndrome’ are dealing with. Scarlett created miniature figurines of sheep and Jesus heads made from natural olive soap, utilizing the same traditional soap-making methods produced in the Nablus soap factory. Scarlett filled the entire Gallery Anadiel floor with these sculptures, distributing them in bundles throughout the gallery space and visitors were compelled to walk around and in between the flocks of sheep led by the Jesus heads. Restricted in movement, the visitor, like the sheep figurine, was also being ‘led’ with deliberate and effortless fashion, and by this means, the sheep and those visiting the exhibition merged together as being one in the same, metaphorically speaking.
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