Football is incredibly popular in Palestine but the occupation makes it difficult to flourish. The Palestine national team faces restrictions on travel and dozens of its most promising players have been frequently imprisoned, injured, permanently disabled, and killed after attacks and raids by Israeli forces. In 2014 two young national team players Jawhar Nasser and Adam Halabiya were shot repeatedly in the feet and legs near an Israeli checkpoint in occupied Palestine.
Palestinian football stadiums and fields have been bombed by Israeli forces and sections of the separation wall were built down the middle of the pitch at Abu Dis campus of Al-Quds University.
This project reimagines the struggle of Palestinian football through the table football game Subbuteo, with Palestinian players on crutches, wheelchairs and arrested in handcuffs attempting to play on against a rival team of IDF soldiers who oversee the enclosure and the building of Israeli settlements on the pitch.
The diorama will be on display in Berlin from this Friday at an exhibition I'm co-curating called Werbepause - The Art of Subvertising at Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien. After the show ends in August I intend to bring it back to display in the UK at the Museum of Neoliberalism.
