Kate Trenerry: Documenting Division in Israel/Palestine, Cyprus, and Northern Ireland

Boundary Way, West Belfast, Northern Ireland ©Kate Trenerry

Walls are built as an instrument of political partition to bring clarity and focus to sectarian conflicts within neighborhoods, terrorist attacks throughout cities, even all-out war across a country. I brought my camera to Israel/Palestine, Cyprus, and Northern Ireland to complicate and blur my understanding of these divided societies and the people who live in them.

Cupar Way, West Belfast, Northern Ireland ©Kate Trenerry

In early 2012, I set out to understand and document the effects of the Israeli Separation Barrier, the United Nations Buffer Zone in Cyprus, and the Peace Lines of Northern Ireland on the places and people they divide. I spent a total of three months on the road, during which time I attempted to walk along as much of the barriers as possible.

Rural Checkpoint near Qalqilya, Palestine ©Kate Trenerry

Walls and borders imply a dualistic view of space, yet all of their power depends on how people interpret and interact with these spaces. Borders are where the rules change, if someone enforces them.

The Edge of the Buffer Zone, Nicosia, Cyprus ©Kate Trenerry

During my journey, I met people who were walls and people who were bulldozers. I encountered city blocks that were inviolable boundaries. I was entranced by parallel of lights in hazy distance that represented deadly borders. Walls are dramatic and easy to photograph, but the way they seep into the landscape and people around them are difficult for outsiders to detect, much less understand or document. My work serves as a record of my own travels in these borderlands as an attempt to document the everyday reality of these brutal barriers, but to also investigate questions and inconsistencies that arise from their attempt to create duality in modern political cases that are too complex to be cast in black and white.

Walajeh, Palestine ©Kate Trenerry

For more of Kate's work go to www.kateincolor.com

Israel - Scarred Land: By Beth A. Gilbert

Beth A. Gilbert's photographs are primarily landscape based, dealing with the environment and the ways in which human beings affect it. One major influence reflected in the subject matter of her photographs is her interest and background in political science. Her images have also been inspired by the work of Jem Southam, whose photographs capture a balance of the natural landscape and the intervention of man within it, following the cycles of decay and renewal, documenting the changes over days, months and years.

Trench Entrance, Ramat Rachel, Jerusalem, Israel 2010  Beth A. Gilbert © 2012

Since the focus of Beth's imagery relies heavily on society and civilization’s impact upon the environment, she is sensitive to her process being as non-invasive as possible- staying true to the unaltered landscape. She has a desire for her photographs to be ‘pure’, as in true to the original medium. Beth's employment of a traditional tool of landscape photography, the 4x5 camera, and using minimal alterations to compliment her ideology fits in well with her artistic expression and vision. In 2010, she decided to take her ventures in photography further, and extended her vision to Israel. 

Barbed Wire Thicket, Dead Sea, Israel 2010  Beth A. Gilbert © 2012

Debris, IDF Firing Zone, Gamla, Israel 2010  Beth A. Gilbert © 2012

The photographs in this series entitled Scarred Land, which were all produced in Israel, deal with war, the damage it inflicts upon the terrain, and the natural recovery over time. The battle sites and military training zones depicted have not memorialized or preserved by human beings in any way, and are now naturally recovering from the inflicted trauma as well as being reclaimed by the earth.  

 

Destroyed Syrian Structure, Golan Heights, Israel, 2010  Beth A. Gilbert © 2012

Beth has chosen to focus on war zones to show the viewer that this is how we, as human beings, treat each other and the planet that we inhabit. We view ourselves as a species better than the rest because we have a level of consciousness that allows for individuality and creativity. These attributes, among many others, enable us to create/invent ever growing ways in which to better our lives.

A Different Viewpoint, Golan Heights, Israel 2010  Beth A. Gilbert © 2012

In Beth’s opinion, it is due to this consciousness that we should know better than to wage wars against one another based on land, power, ideology, or even religion. Through our technology and the methods in which we implement it to harm each other, we are in turn destroying our planet. Eventually, we will be the means to our own end.

Fire Ravaged Valley, Gamla, Israel 2010  Beth A. Gilbert © 2012