‘Walking Walls’: A Photographic Exploration of Modern Political Boundaries

(This guest post/photo essay is by Kate Trenerry, who has traveled extensively throughout Europe and the Middle East to explore and document modern political borders. She has two bachelor’s degrees–one in History and another in Cinema & Media Studies–both from Carleton College. For a complete bio, including links to Kate’s blog, see the end of this post.)

Separation

‘Walking Walls’ is a project about people: families, communities, and individuals who live in extraordinary circumstances.

I spent three months walking along the Israeli Separation Wall around Jerusalem, the UN buffer zone in Cyprus, and the Peace Walls of Northern Ireland to physically experience how political partition affects those at ground zero. My aim was to document the consequences of division and physical segregation on a local and personal level, and begin to tell the stories of people who have been caught in political crossfire beyond their control.

This was also an extremely personal experience, by virtue of the nature of my solo travel. I intentionally sought a physically and mentally challenging experience that would allow me to experience a fraction of the fear and pain these walls inflict on the lands and people who surround them.

By relying on my own feet as a method of interacting with the places I visited, I gained a clearer, more slow-paced and intense understanding of the local landscape than I otherwise might have been able to.

Although the borders I visited are not officially recognized by most governments or international bodies, the concrete on the ground and in the heart renders this fact void for those who live with these divisions daily. I hope this project begins to shed a light on the brutal and overlooked realities of physical partition on a local scale.

Framing the Wall

1. Bethlehem, West Bank

I am juggling impromptu Arabic lessons from my taxi driver, the anxiety that comes with your first time in Palestine, and a rush of guilt because I am standing 50 feet from Aida Refugee Camp as I mentally frame the wall and raise my camera.

This, I tell myself, people need to see.

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Sharing Coffee and Slingshots

2. Jabal Mukaber, East Jerusalem

I trip over a dead cat. Its eye socket has been ripped from its face and lies pink and raw in the mud. Three men hail me from their hillside perch and insist on sharing coffee although we cannot speak to each other in a common tongue.

We take turns firing rocks into the valley with a slingshot instead.

I walk to the end of a road where a watchtower looms over houses, and soldiers inspect those who would enter this forsaken corner of the holy city.

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Shepherd’s Crossing

3. Qalqilya, West Bank

We have turned a quiet rural checkpoint into a spectacle, and everyone raises their cameras shamelessly to photograph a Palestinian driving a donkey-powered cart through the gate. I am on a tour with left-leaning Israelis and internationals, two of whom get into an argument with soldiers and are soon extracted by our leader.

A herd of sheep cross without incident; only the shepherd’s papers are examined.

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Following Orders

4. No-Man’s-Land, Nicosia, Cyprus

“Do not point your camera at the Turkish positions,” my United Nations escort tells me emphatically. I fight both temptation and instinct as we plunk around crumbling buildings, tall grass and small ponds that have been given free reign in this abandoned sector of an otherwise bustling European capital.

I couldn’t help but wonder, what would happen if I raised my hand and focused the black barrel of my lens?

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Edge of Consciousness

5. Lefke, North Cyprus

I am playing chicken with the Buffer Zone, trying to get as close as possible; I want to see the edge.

The only vehicles on the misty road are Turkish military jeeps and UN trucks. There is a watchtower perched on the highest hilltop and I imagine guards inside with their guns trained on my bright blue raincoat. I reach a decaying jumble of houses and I know I will find a barricade around the next corner. I turn around while I still can.

This place is more than the limits of a land; it is the edge of consciousness where frayed pieces must be hammered down with bricks and mortar.

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Refugees’ Tales

6. Famagusta, North Cyprus

We are on a dead-end march toward the abandoned city. There are four of us, picking our way through the sand along a windy expanse of beach. Our progress is halted by a plastic fence and a manned watchtower. One of my companions softly recalls summer days spent at a hotel on the other side whose steady Corinthian columns are now slipping into the sea.

We stand one hundred meters away and can do nothing but watch.

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Wall in the Park

7. Alexandra Park, North Belfast

This is it? I approach the graffiti-covered, corrugated metal structure, an unintentionally colorful, tiny dragon that wends its way down a grassy hill and over a creek.

The gate is open and I pass through unnoticed.

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Down the Shankill

8. Cupar Way, West Belfast

I hold my face close to the wall, reading a scrawled epithet, when the blast of a horn jerks me away from my thoughts and slams me down on a dirty street near the Shankill Road. I hear satisfied laughter as the car speeds away, its muffler groaning. Tourist buses come and go, their passengers transient, the vehicles an unrelenting piece of the landscape.

Near one end of the wall, there is an empty lot across the street, lined with tires, and concrete. I was standing here when the car horn made me jump.

The buses never stop by that part.

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Imagining…

9. Shankill/Falls, West Belfast

I am doing an experiment in West Belfast, assuming the role of an innocent pedestrian who wishes to cross from the Shankill to the Falls and back, as many times as possible, just to see what it’s like.

This person does not actually exist in Belfast.

My impersonation fails and my feet are forced by the walls.

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Your Thoughts/Reactions/Experiences?

What do you think of Kate’s project? I think it’s a great one (which is why I invited her to guest post for me.) Do you have any questions for her? If so, feel free to post them and she’ll be more than happy to answer them.

Have you visited any of these separation walls? Other ones? What was it like for you? Did you meet people there? If so, what were they like?

Feel free to include a link to a post you’ve written if relevant. Here’s a link to one I wrote about ‘bad border behaviors.’

More About Kate

Kate, who’s originally from Rochester, Minnesota, is now living in Boston where she is interning at Northern Light Productions, freelancing and laying the foundations for a career in photojournalism. She received the Edward H. “Ted” Mullin Fellowship in History, led a workshop on Rephotography for a Carleton class in Berlin and won a national championship in Ultimate Frisbee. Here’s a link to her website, Kate in Color, and her blog.

Photo Credit: All photos are Kate’s except the first one. Credit and thanks go to Paul Englefield, a photographer who made his work available via Creative Commons. Here’s a link to his Flickr stream.