Roger Grasas

HONORABLE MENTION

‘Ha Aretz’ -‘The land’ in the old aramaic language of Middle East- is a visual reinterpretation of the locations of the biblical landscapes amidst a globalized world of alienation, consumerism and conflict. Compiled from photographs taken throughout Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Egypt – the current countries that make up most of the Holy Land – this series is conceived with the aim of documenting, based on precise historiographic and archaeological research, the landscapes where took place the most famous scenes from the sacred books such as the Genesis, the Exodus, the life of the prophets or the birth, miracles and crucifixion of Jesus etc. At the same time, it aspires to provide a visual reflection on the evolution of these conflictive ancestral regions referred to as the cradle of civilization such as Galilee, Samaria or Judea, wich represent the epicentre of the Jewish, Christian and Arab cultures while testifying to the ferocious power that capitalism and technology exercise in our postmodern times. From Nazareth to Bethlehem, from the Sinai peninsula to the Golan heights and from the Nile river to The Dead Sea, the main regions of the Holy Books exist also as merchandised spaces of leisure and suffering within a world of consecrated frontiers. Landscapes are consumed, and so are the history and the past wich turns out to be a sort of fossil embedded on the geographic, and cultural skin of these places. What persists is the totalitarian veneration of its supposed historicity, ethnicity and monumentality. Preserving with its gaze necessary distances, what ‘Ha Aretz’ documents is the deep abysm produced by chimerical illusions.

More about the photographer:
rogergrasas.com

Project
Ha Aretz (The Promised Land)

Location
Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt

Year
2019