Walls of Hope

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Walls of Hope ~

Walls of Hope, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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Peeking through the gap you can see the Louvre, one of its numerous statues and a lone bird flying away.

We're in the Cour Napoléon, and if we turned round from where this pic was shot we'd see the Pyramid, glinting in the sun.

But what is this strange new edifice which has snuck in under our noses while we were looking in the other direction? A pile of stones? A heap of rubble? Not what you might call 'artistic' as such.

This is, however, art. Of a sort. It's a construction, albeit basic, composed of stones, basalt to be precise, collectively known as Makom IV. Makom means 'place' in Hebrew'. Deeper connotations I'd be hard pressed to tell you.

This basalt has been 'collected along the border between Israel and Syria', as well as from houses fallen into ruin in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Galilee and Hebron.

The work was installed by Israeli and Palestinian masons, and is an attempt to 'question the fragile notion of border and plays on the ambiguity between construction and destruction'.

I think it sits well, if temporarily, alongside the strikingly modern glass and chrome pyramid and the flamboyant classicism of the old Louvre. The point is made. We think. The fact that it was constructed by 'Israeli and Palestinian masons' (what, at the same time?) is probably the thing I'll remember most.

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

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