2020 | Building Peace through Heritage
Michel Foucault describes museums as one of the tools of the central power , by which the main narrative is defined and spread to the single individuals ( Foucault 1995 ). The official narrative is created by perpetrating history through the same source of power with a monopolization of the past ; in the case of Israel , at first , Zionism defined the narrative and later the state . The official history is maintained and transmitted through state bodies such as museums and educational apparatuses , which participate in the writing of the official history . The continuity of a political body depends on the success of institutions to create a story that is accepted as official and at the same time by silencing alternative interpretations of other historical experiences ( Foucault 2006 , 61-65 ; Medina 2011 ).
The curatorial work done in the exhibition “ 1948 ” is an exception because it challenges the main narrative and becomes a different source of power , it is an attempt to challenge the official history by giving voice to other experiences that had been silenced . In this way , the exhibition is a form of Counter-Memory , a way to undo the silenced voices in order to undermine the unity produced by the official history and to challenge the accepted narrative ( Foucault 2006 ). The way history is being told and accepted defines the identities of the different individuals in a community . In the case of Israel and Palestine the dominant history limits the possibility of understanding the others ’ stories and motives and this builds a barrier for both communities when discussing possible resolutions to the conflict . The exhibition “ 1948 ”, as a Counter-Memory , breaks the continuity of power and the continuity of history by facing the viewer with the memory of the other ( Ibid ; Fassin 2000 ).
One of the works exhibited is “ Evil ” by Eric Bokobza ( figure 5 ), this is probably the most controversial and discussed work exhibited in the museum . It is a painting based on a well-known Holocaust photograph of a soldier shooting a woman holding a baby ( figure 6 ). The artist maintains the exact same body language of the photograph but flattens the canvas by using bright and flat colors . The figures are placed in a reality which is separate from the concepts of space and time . In this way the artist makes violence and pain universal by turning the character of the photos into figures that could represent anyone , in any place , in any time . He took appropriation of an image of the Holocaust , directly associated with the Jewish pain and essential component of the Israeli Identity and Narrative , and used it to create empathy and describe the pain of the other ( Riba 2018 ).
Fig . 5 - Eliahou Bokobza , Evil 2013 , ( private collection )
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