THE LITTLE PRINCE IN AL-AUJA

 The Little Prince in Al-Auja

תרגום לעברית בסוף, אחרי האנגלית

Note: The Little Prince in Al-Auja was also a part of my exhibit Black Sabres in a Burning Reality at the Agripas 12 Gallery, Jerusalem from July 23 till August 22, 2020.

I created "The Little Prince in Al-Auja" for  the group exhibit “My Second Childhood” - members of cooperative gallery “Agripas 12” respond to a children’s book of their choice. At the West Jerusalem YMCA - July 5 to July 27, 2018.

The work consists of three photographic prints on transparencies, forming a triptych in a (light) box,  40x100x10 cm. 

I chose “The Little Prince” because I am a lover of deserts. On my travels, I have roamed through the Great Sand Sea in the Egyptian Sahara, and imagined the place where Antoine de St. Exupéry had an emergency landing on his flight from Paris to Saigon and was lost in the desert - like the pilot in the book. The place that possibly inspired him to write The Little Prince. It is no wonder the book is set in the desert, as the desert, with its vast, unknown spaces, inspires seeing the world as if for the first time – like a child. It is where the fox reveals the secret to the Little Prince, that “it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

In my reading, the book holds a political statement. The Little Prince travels to many distant planets to visit all these powerful people – all men. Their puzzling behavior of domination, possessiveness, arrogance, pigeonholing, power games does not make sense to the logic of a child.

I placed the Little Prince in Al- Auja, Jordan Valley, Area C. He herds his sheep, while his meager grazing lands, at the edge of the desert, are steadily downsized, fenced in, confiscated by settlers, declared ‘closed military zones’, firing zones or nature reserves. Incomprehensible to a child. Not only to a child.

The Little Prince and I, July 5, 2018 at the YMCA, Jerusalem