Mount X

This practice-based research project entitled 'Mount X' was created by Dana Ariel to explore traces found in the landscape as a result of migration, settlement and the forming of a unified cultural heritage through predetermined erasure in the case of name-change, language and cross-generational storytelling. The project includes a series of colour and black and white photographs and laser engraved wood prints created through multiple visits to the site between 2015-2018. The title Mount X stands for the many failed attempts made to settle this particular mount in Israel throughout history. These attempts include the temporary and short-lived settling of the German Protestant Templers at the end of the 19^th century, the hastily built camp to accommodate the arrival of Jewish migrants from Arab countries in the 50s and more recently, the site became a place of social and romantic gathering for the local youth.

The visits to Mount X are informed by the desire to make visible the perpetual erasure, concealment and active erosion of a Jewish-Arab culture and identity in Israeli society. Explored through the lens of the artist’s mixed biography of Kurdish-Jewish and German heritage, the project seeks to experiment with traces found in language and in the landscape that could begin to challenge and undo the mechanisms concealing these identities. The intersection of the roads climbing the mount, the growth of trees and the traces of concrete platforms – which once formed the base of a tent or a shed intended to host families of newly arrived migrants – are traces of human presence that are explored through the various printing techniques.    

Works from Mount X were exhibited internationally in Maya Gallery, Tel Aviv, Brighton Photo Fringe Festival, Gallery North in Newcastle (The International Print Biennale) and discussed in various artist talks and presentations in Israel and the UK. Mount X also appears in the essay ‘Siting Language’ by Dana Ariel published in the Moveable Type journal in 2018.