No street names in Palestine

2020,
Cement, 125x105x11 cm

No street names in Palestine is a sculpture work about ‘invisible’  Palestine geography by cartographic censorship.  95% of Palestinian streets, unnamed, non-places, are invisible in online maps, except the streets where Israeli settlers live.

Israel limits the entry of basic essentials including water, fuel and building materials to Gaza. After Israel bombardments, Palestinians try to rebuild the city. The Israel government has repeatedly banned the importing of cement, which is monopolized and sold by Israeli cement companies who procure cement for separation wall, checkpoints and to occupant settlers' constructions. With these blockages, it has become impossible to rebuild Palestine. In 2012 the UN warned that the Palestinian coastal enclave would become “uninhabitable” by 2020 as a result of the restrictions.
The sculpture work is made of cement. The outlines of the West Bank and Gaza are filled with cement dust, bearing the mark of a bulldozer track which Israeli settlers are using for destroying local’s homes. This mark is creating ‘new topography’ of the country and at the same time trampling the language and the people.