Ashcom Morgan
Open
Published by Gnomic Book, 2022
Size: 23.2 x 18.2 cm
148 pages
Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-957301-98-3
Open is a series of 34 photo-text diptychs combining 4"x5" c-prints and printed html code.
The photographs were taken in occupied Palestine in 2009. At a checkpoint, Israeli Defense Forces opened my 4x5 film canister, obscuring and flaring the unprocessed film. The film canister was stored in my studio, then revisited ten years later as the Israeli occupation of Palestine continued. I contributed to a fundraiser in 2021 alongside Wajdi Yaeesh and the Human Supporters Association, a Palestinian-led nonprofit whose mission is to serve and support children, youth, and women from marginalized communities in Nablus. Due to internet restrictions imposed by Israeli apartheid, Wajdi was unable to verify his identity with various financial institutions, resulting in the loss of thousands of dollars in donations. The textual elements of Open are drawn from the HTML code of the emails in which Wajdi was asked to verify his identity, referencing the banal bureaucratic apartheid that occurs online. The legibility of the c-prints oscillates between total abstraction and realism, referencing both erasure and the potential for its reversal.
These works do not claim to have the burden of proving what is written above. They are fictions co-written during the collision of my film with the Israeli apartheid state and the experience of a tenacious Palestinian organizer.
Revenue generated from the sale or publication of these works will be donated directly to the Human Supporters Association.
Publisher's text.