Colony

Dor Guez
Colony, 2021
Three channel video installation

At the height of the First World War, large swarms of locusts raided Egypt, Syria, and Palestine and threatened the agriculture of the region. The subsequent food shortage and price rises exacerbated the existing wartime shortage leading to famine. The visual representation most identified with the plague is a pair of pictures of a fig tree recorded 15 minutes before and after the swarm of locusts from the photographic album by American Colony photographer Lewis Larsson. Photographers of the American colony were invited to create the album for the imperial authorities—both Ottoman (1915) and British (1930). Therefore, their gaze on the native Arab farmers is coloured with an orientalist gaze. The locals are always seen from behind or above, working for the imperial officers. In contrast to the colonialist perspective, the video is narrated by an Arab male voice, an official anchor typical of a National Geographic or Discovery Channel. The content of the text is twofold: on the one hand, it sounds like a text about the metamorphoses of swarms, while on the other, it deals with the formation of colonies throughout history. There is no direct reference to locusts or humans. This ambiguity, which is kept throughout the work, charges the narrative and allows parallel readings of ecological, political and social meanings. The video installation also deals with the individual's place within the group, as well as the conditions under which the colony emerges and its economic and territorial aspirations, which ultimately lead to its collapse from within. The three-channel video concludes with a series of manipulated stereoscopic photographs, derived from the National Library of Congress in DC. Parting with the double stereoscopic visions of the early photographers, Guez explores alternative types of duplication and creates mirrored images of a single plate at a time. The process directs the viewer’s gaze to the damaged areas, which appear as abstract stains alluding to a variety of imagery and echoing the presence of fire and the swarms apparent in the original prints. Colony is based on photographs by Dor Guez, sourced materials from the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, and a hand-painted photographic album, "Locust Plague in Jerusalem '' (1915, 1930).