TVZero123
By Khalil Rabah
Palestinian Artist


Palestinian architect and conceptual artist Khalil Rabah’s new work, TVZero123, which was commissioned for Meeting Points 5, is a live broadcast of Palestinian villagers employed in architectural renovation of buildings in the West Bank. Since 2001, Riwaq, an independent organization, has funded and overseen the restoration of some thirty historic buildings through a program entitled “Job Creation Through Conservation.” This program provides deeply needed employment and income to severely depressed economic rural areas through the rehabilitation of buildings which serve to preserve the legacy and beauty of Palestine’s rural and architectural landscape. In a brilliant and powerful subversion of ‘reality’ shows and news broadcasts, TVZero123 will stream live testimonials of villagers working on two renovation sites, and will be broadcast to Amman, Beirut, Cairo, Alexandria, Brussels and Berlin. The project presents a remarkable turn in Rabah’s work, a cogent exploration of (fictitious) Palestinian national institutions, affiliated with a state which is only acceptable to the world in theory, never in reality.

Part of Meeting Points 5 Contemporary Art Festival - 2007

See also:

> "The Smuggler" and "The Magician", by Yto Barrada

> www.meetingpoints.org