Dear Friends,

As many of you may have heard, I have been working on a project surrounding the idea of.
After recent discussions about attention as an ethical dilemma, I have turned my attention
back to a subject that I have looked away from for many years. In the interest of time, I will
explain the project briefly.
Im currently looking at the Israeli/Gaza border and thinking about the way that land is used
or withheld as property and the inequity involved in rights and privileges to the owner of
land. I think this has connections with many types of borders, not only geographic borders
such as our own border with Mexico or the borders of reservations within the US, but also
those invisible borders associated with social or economic divides. In Gaza, the stakes remain
high in this on-going conflict. Over 2000 Palestinian and 37 Israeli lives were lost last year
alone. Last summer, the deadly volley of rocket fire between Israel and Gaza dragged on for
51 days.
It is in moments like these that I want to look away or turn my attention to anything else
because looking becomes so difficult. As an artist, maybe as a human, I want to do something
about this, but as a disconnected, American viewer, what can actually be done? I heard Janet
Biggs speak about her video work A Step on the Sun, which follows the dangerous lives of
sulfur miners in Indonesia. When pressed about what her work actually does for the miners,
what it accomplishes, she answered that she could not measure the effect of her work but
that she felt compelled to bear witness to the fact that this was happening in the world. The
idea if bearing witness resonated with me, and I think it is through this framework that I can
begin to look again and feel I have permission to speak from my removed American
perspective. I still ask, Is this enough? What is enough?
For this particular project, I am embarking on a series of walks that include lengths of
different Gaza borders as I grapple with, attempt to understand and reconcile these concerns,
knowing that they may in fact be irreconcilable. I think there is something about embodiment,
moving through this distance with my own body, that can touch or process these ideas and
events in a way that my mind cannot.
When I finish these long walks, I do not come up against a literal wall like those that separate
Gaza and Israel, but this kind of durational action presents its own physical and psychological
limitations. In a recent walk, as I neared the end, body breaking down, emotionally falling
apart, I was struck with the futility of this action and its parallel to the feeling of futility that
accompanied making work about these difficult subjects. I learned far more in the action of
walking than I had expected, and the project has opened up in several ways. I have begun to
invite people to walk with me in a shared experience. I think this simple action may have
value for you as well, and maybe in a different way, about a different thing. Walking together
opens up the possibility to engage in dialogue around these and other ideas. Perhaps through
communication and personal connection we can find something valuable, some small seed of
change.
While here in Chicago, Ive mapped a route along the water for another walk that covers
several distances, specific to my project, and allows for participation at varying levels. Here
are some numbers for you
3.4 miles- the most narrow part of Gazas width
7.8 miles- width of the southern border
24.6 miles- the length of the coastal border
28.6 miles- the distance from the north gate to the south gate
32 miles- the length of border between Gaza and Israel

If you are interested in walking me for any part of the walk, please shoot me an email (or talk
with me) with the distance you are thinking. I will send out more details to those of you who
are interested.
Love,
Jackie