Castoffs
Moran Shoub
1. On the right to have shelter and a roof over one’s head through images of those abandoned in the public space
Moran Shoub
Those who never experienced the absence of a roof over their head and live safely in their homes, may never have thought about the basic right for a dwelling. There are quite a few pictures showing the contents of a home thrown out into the street in this year’s Local Testimony exhibition, as well as the homeless and refugees sleeping outside. Mattresses.
In the public space our body is our shelter, but our body also needs a haven. In the public space we are careful about ourselves. There are things we will not do in public, but only between the four walls of our home, because only there we can take full liberty, allow ourselves to release body and emotions, even let ourselves collapse, gather strength and go out into the world once more. Our home is the shelter we leave and to which we return.
The following is a few words about “the right of dwelling” taken from a background document to the indictment of the People’s Tribunal on Public Housing which discussed the matter of public housing on 4 October, 2012:
“The basis of our discussion in the People’s Tribunal on Public Housing is a basic right, recognized by Israeli law, to live with dignity. The right for proper housing derives from this right and is grounded in the Human Rights Law. The right to enjoy proper housing was recognized by the State of Israel when it accepted and ratified international treaties… The recognition of the value of human beings, the sanctity of their life and freedom is the infrastructure of human rights in Israel grounded in the basic law of the Human Dignity and Freedom (1992), which also mandates the right for proper housing. Without a roof over one’s head, it is questionable whether the lofty words of the law have any meaning. The right for proper housing is designed to guarantee the implementation of living securely and dignifiedly for all human beings, irrespective of their financial means. Protection of this right under law seeks to implement values of mutual responsibility and serves as a horizon for the existence of a moral society.”
The images in this exhibit, which were gathered from photographs sent to the Local Testimony editorial board and additional ones, show rejected people and objects, intentionally abandoned and thus left high and dry without a roof over their head: the homeless and the refugees lying asleep in the street, personal effects and the contents of a home thrown out for all to see: a mattress; the brutality of confiscating a mattress.
In stark contrast to a roof over one’s head and the walls that provide shelter, containing and protecting, everything thrown out into the street – people and objects alike – do not contain and are not contained, and are left with no protection.
As citizens who show responsibility for their fellow men and women, and as photographers who function in the public space, it is imperative that we act in solidarity, together protest against, and together seek what each of us deserves –freedom, respect and shelter.
Castoffs
2. The mattress – a home without walls
Moran Shoub
All the photographs in the Local Testimony exhibit document the events that took place between 1 September 2011 and 31 August 2012 – except for two photographs; one, which I believe will become a historic icon, that shows the contents of a home without any walls. This photograph by Oren Ziv, a member of the Activestills photography group, is an image which inspired the tent camp protest: the contents of an apartment that Dafni Leef spread out on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv 14 July 2011, about an hour before the official opening time of the event she set on Facebook, that spurred the tent camp city protest on the boulevard.
What Leef did was a conscious, intentional act of spreading out her personal effects in the public space. This usually does not occur intentionally or consciously, but rather brutally and mercilessly as it appears in the second photograph, of 25.12.2007, which was also taken by Oren Ziv, in which eight special counter-terror police officers are seen removing a mattress from a home in Kfar Shalem, in south Tel Aviv. People and their personal effects are dumped onto the street. In this pile you will always find a mattress. The mattress is the humble personal space upon which we all, in our homes, lay down on in order to gather strength. None of us, unless we are homeless, unless we are refugees, sleep outside on the street. When a person or an entire family is thrown out into the street, they have no shelter.
Those who have never experienced the absence of a roof over their heads may have never thought about the basic right for a dwelling.
Exhibition gallery