The neighbors
Clement Chapillon discovered the village of Abu Tor during an exhibition he made for Willy Brandt Center about his series “Promise me a Land” in october 2018. The exhibition took place in Asael street, the middle of the noman's land that split Abu Tor since 1949. Day after day, his curiosity for this neigborhoods grew up and he decided to spend almost one week there with his camera, walking in the hasards of the streets, between the lines.
Many consider Jerusalem to be the center of the world, an earthly as well as a heavenly city, both holy and tragic. But it is on its fringes that he had decided to set his gaze, in Abu Tor. The village is at once an East-Jerusalem Arab village and the extension of a West-Jerusalem. Jewish neighborhood with a very particular geography and history. From above, we can feel the huge concentration of people with all kinds of architectures.
“A very good way to feel Abu Tor is to get lost in small streets in early times, with the first rey of lights and inhabitants wake up”
When you look at this dense neighborhood, one is at once in Israel and in Palestine. Since 1948, neighbors that everything seemed to oppose have been contemplating each other in very close proximity, sometimes even touching each other, only to better separate. For close to twenty years, the border between Israel and Jordan that crossed Assael and Ein Rogel Street created a No-Man’s land that has left its mark in the heart of the village, even when the line of cease-fire disappeared physically more than fifty years ago.
Children here lead an ordinary life between the lines and the scars drawn by history. They play, they go to school, they experience boredom – whatever, as long as they are outside. In few kids garden and basketball playground, we can see the neighbors mixing each other and accepting the presence of the other.
In this new project, I intend to capture the essence of this unique place through the prism of childhood. To look contemplatively, poetically and perhaps even naively upon these neighbors that are too often ignored or even sometimes made seemingly invisible.
In the upper part of Abu Tor, modern Israeli white-stone houses have been built next to the older homes that predated the creation of the State of Israel. Here, many intellectuals, writers and expats have made their homes. In the lower part of the village, just a few streets below, one enters the home of the neighbors living in the midst of a Palestinian urban landscape: Sheep and goat herders always in the vincinity, old sofas abandoned on the street, old Ottoman houses, horses...and children, everywhere.
Looking at this ochre and arid landscape, I felt all of the vibrations and complexities of this land, but also the murmurs of time. It is here, near the top of the ‘Hill of Evil Council” that Judas betrayed Jesus. I hope to explore the links and mental representations that these children have with their territory, with several materials : photographies, interviews, sounds and drawings of the young inhabitants.
I’d like to dig into another parcel of this territory, much smaller but no less fascinating. Through kids drawings, interviews, videos, map archives and of course photographies, I would like to explore the identity of these strange and unique neighborhoods. If you are interested in this project, don't hesitate to contact me cc@unforeseen.studio
