Al Jaar Qabla Al Daar (The Neighbor Before the House)
Ticket Information
Standard: HKD 85
Concessions: HKD 68
Al Jaar Qabla Al Daar (The Neighbor Before the House)
Al Jaar Qabla Al Daar (The Neighbor before the House) presents audio commentary and CCTV footage recorded over the course of one month by eight Palestinian families in East Jerusalem, edited by Mumbai-based multidisciplinary artist studio CAMP. As the families manipulate a joystick to pan across and zoom in on neighbouring structures, they narrate experiences of violence and displacement embedded in their surroundings. The camera captures both private homes and public sites, such as the Western Wall plaza, once a Moroccan district destroyed by Israel after the Six-Day War. These ‘probes’, as CAMP terms them, express the city’s intense, ongoing histories of occupation through immediate details. The families also use the CCTV in a more exploratory way, scanning for evidence of their experiences rather than only illustrating them.
The extended collaboration with a particular community and shared authorship that underlies the work are typical of CAMP’s approach. Here, equipping members of a marginalised group with full control of surveillance tools flips conventional power dynamics. At the same time, the camera’s hiddenness reinforces the sense of separation that pervades the Palestinians’ stories.
CAMP. Al Jaar Qabla Al Daar (The Neighbor Before the House), 2009–2011. CCTV footage transferred to single-channel digital video (colour, sound), duration: 60 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © CAMP
CAMP. Al Jaar Qabla Al Daar (The Neighbor Before the House), 2009–2011. CCTV footage transferred to single-channel digital video (colour, sound), duration: 60 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © CAMP
CAMP. Al Jaar Qabla Al Daar (The Neighbor Before the House), 2009–2011. CCTV footage transferred to single-channel digital video (colour, sound), duration: 60 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © CAMP
CAMP. Al Jaar Qabla Al Daar (The Neighbor Before the House), 2009–2011. CCTV footage transferred to single-channel digital video (colour, sound), duration: 60 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © CAMP
CAMP. Al Jaar Qabla Al Daar (The Neighbor Before the House), 2009–2011. CCTV footage transferred to single-channel digital video (colour, sound), duration: 60 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © CAMP
CAMP. Al Jaar Qabla Al Daar (The Neighbor Before the House), 2009–2011. CCTV footage transferred to single-channel digital video (colour, sound), duration: 60 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © CAMP
CAMP. Al Jaar Qabla Al Daar (The Neighbor Before the House), 2009–2011. CCTV footage transferred to single-channel digital video (colour, sound), duration: 60 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © CAMP
CAMP. Al Jaar Qabla Al Daar (The Neighbor Before the House), 2009–2011. CCTV footage transferred to single-channel digital video (colour, sound), duration: 60 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © CAMP
CAMP. Al Jaar Qabla Al Daar (The Neighbor Before the House), 2009–2011. CCTV footage transferred to single-channel digital video (colour, sound), duration: 60 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © CAMP
CAMP. Al Jaar Qabla Al Daar (The Neighbor Before the House), 2009–2011. CCTV footage transferred to single-channel digital video (colour, sound), duration: 60 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © CAMP
CAMP. Al Jaar Qabla Al Daar (The Neighbor Before the House), 2009–2011. CCTV footage transferred to single-channel digital video (colour, sound), duration: 60 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © CAMP
CAMP. Al Jaar Qabla Al Daar (The Neighbor Before the House), 2009–2011. CCTV footage transferred to single-channel digital video (colour, sound), duration: 60 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © CAMP
About the Director
CAMP is an Indian artist studio founded around 2007 in Mumbai by Shaina Anand, Sanjay Bhangar, and Ashok Sukumaran. They have worked with a wide range of mediums and forms, such as film, installation, photography, printed matter, performance, and digital platforms, exploring the juncture of technological and artistic experimentation. Their cross-disciplinary practice often engages and collaborates with specific groups and communities over a long period of time, examining the impacts of various global phenomena and interrogating the established systems of authority.
Image at top: CAMP. Al Jaar Qabla Al Daar (The Neighbor Before the House), 2009–2011. CCTV footage transferred to single-channel digital video (colour, sound), duration: 60 min.. M+, Hong Kong. © CAMP