Borderlands
Illit Rosenblum, Borderlands, 1987.
working notes
I made the “Borderlands” piece after reading Gloria Anzaldúa for "Diversity as an Environmental Issue," a seminar given by Prof. Maxine Wolfe at the Environmental Psychology Program at CUNY in 1986/7. I’m struck by how intensely relevant Gloria Anzaldúa’s words continue to be. Soon after the seminar, Maxine Wolfe, I and many others were deep in the grips of the HIV virus and “acting up.” Borderlands kept being part of my personal landscape, bringing “tension and ambivalence” to the undercurrent flow of my life.
Borderlands were also multiplying in a mind-boggling variety of ways in front of our* horrified eyes:
"…As of 20 September 2006, the West Bank closure system comprises 528 checkpoints and physical obstacles placed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on roads to control and restrict Palestinian movement – representing an increase of almost 40% since August 2005. "
OCHA UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Movement and Access Report.
Separation Barrier, Concrete Walls, Electronic Fences, Observation Towers, Trenches, Patrol Roads, Razor Wire, Barrier Gates, Checkpoints, Partial Checkpoints, Road Gates, Road Blocks, Earth Mounds, Earth Walls, Road Barriers, Road Fences. Permanent Physical Obstacles, Temporary Obstacles, Permit System and Varying Regulations.
(compiled from that same report)
Similar structures are being erected in Gloria Anzaldúa’s country, tearing up the landscape.
Borderlands, where “unrest resides” and “death is no stranger.”
* I refer here to the Israeli women checkpoint monitors, Machsom-watch Jerusalem.
about the artist
Illit Rosenblum (I. Rose) is a yoga and meditation instructor, artist, and community and peace activist with a background in Environmental Research and Social-cultural studies. She came to NYC in 1978 from (West) Jerusalem via a decade in Stockholm, Sweden.
