Bus Tickets From the series "Revolutionary Enclosures (Until the Apricots)"

This composition of 150 brass replicas of school bus tickets arranged by color is a display of daily life in the early 2000s in occupied Palestine, where these tickets were indispensable for the daily journey to school. Each brass piece intentionally undergoes decay and oxidation, mirroring the natural aging process of materials associated with weapons manufacturing. Bus Tickets thus becomes a visceral exploration of how temporal experiences evolve under restrictions, using the school bus to evoke memories and illuminate the nature of time within the context of adversity. In the midst of the Covid-19 lockdown, the turquoise bus tickets became viral on social media after classmates from the Talitha Kumi School in Beit Jala reminisced about lockdowns and curfews during the second Intifada in 2000–05 when these bus tickets represented a literal ticket out during the intensified attacks against the Palestinian population in their lock-down cities and villages.

Revolutionary Enclosures (Until the Apricots) is a series of household items designed in response to the distinct material conditions of various lockdowns. Reimagining everyday objects, like the bus tickets, transforms them into symbols of resilience, community, and caregiving that form part of daily life under the constraints of siege and containment.

Puar and Srouji express a shared intention to break down the rigid boundaries concerning the exploration of trauma and containment. In a recorded interview, Srouji challenges the notion embedded in the term post-traumatic stress disorder, emphasizing that trauma doesn’t have a definitive end; it lingers within the body. She illustrates her arguments by highlighting the divergent impact of sounds like shelling and drones in Palestine, suggesting that these may not induce the same level of trauma as an ominous knock on the door, signaling the arrival of the Israeli military to raid one’s home. Drawing on the work of Frantz Fanon, she points out that labeling an entire population as traumatized is a manifestation of the colonial apparatus.

(Text written by TBA21 and used as wall label in the exhibition "The Ecologies of Peace", C3A, Córdoba, 2024)