Existing comment:
This book belongs to its owner Fathallah Saad. He bought it with his own money at the beginning of March 1892.
From https://www.obscura-magazine.com/the-existence-of-the-non-existence/
The existence of the non-existence
Emily Jacir
Emily Jacir's artwork pays attention to things which have suffered enforced disappearance or have been forgotten.
Emily Jacir, an American-Palestinian artist, uses art as the medium to present stories of hometowns which suffered involuntary disappearance. She describes things between Israel and Palestine as "conflicts", which include the sudden disappearance of families, land and history, among other things. For the previous documenta held in Kassel in 2012, Jacir created her work, ex libris, making use of 6000 books designated as "Abandoned Property" in Jewish National Library. These 6000 books used to be the property of Palestinian libraries, schools, institutions or even individuals; however, they were looted by Israel, which claimed that they were abandoned books.
Ex libris means bookplate. In the past, people loved to write or inscribe their own names on the inside front cover of books to indicate their ownership. Jacir made a record of these 6000 abandoned books by taking photographs of them and turned them into installation art. Furthermore, she translated some of the inscriptions into English and German, and exhibited them in various locations in Kassel's city center.
"This book belongs to its owner Fathallah Saad. He bought it with his own money at the beginning of March 1892"
Ownership was eliminated. Despite being on their own soil, Palestinians live a life similar to that of refugees, becoming refugees in their own land. Israel set up barrier in the West Bank, citing homeland safety as the reason. This wall separated land originally belonging to Palestine. Even more ridiculously, there were universities, personal residence, and hospitals being divided into two by the wall. For this reason, there are inspection checkpoints between classrooms, wards and livings rooms, and those who want to pass through need to present their identification document. That is how ownership was forced into disappearance.
This reminds me of Calvino's novel The Nonexistent Knight. The knight in the book has armor but no body. "Nonexistence" does not refer to not being seen. It is only that when "non-existence"strives to confront "existence", "non-existence" falls into the void because of ignorance, poverty and commonplace occurrences. |