Joy Stacey
The Tourist
The Tourist comprises a film installation and a series of images exploring the relationship between Palestinian antiquity and cultural heritage, tourism and political resistance to the Israeli occupation. In 1994 the Palestinian Authority was formed through the Oslo Accords, and the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities was created, modelled on the Jordanian equivalent. Much of the Ministry is based on the British Mandate for Palestine’s Department of Antiquities, which was established in 1920 and abolished in 1948 with the foundation of Israel.
The promotion of antiquity in order to attract tourists is politically significant on several levels. The economy of the Palestinian territories is heavily reliant on tourism, while the millions of visitors who pass through them every year come with the potential to witness the occupation and leave with an altered understanding of Palestinian identity. On a more immediate level, the promotion of Palestinian heritage is of deep significance to the people, and with no formal museum of Palestinian history to represent that heritage, the maintenance of pre-1948 traditions through other means is socially encouraged. The work in this project reflects on the Orientalism inherent in tourism in Palestine, while exploring the utilisation of this objectification as a form of resistance to the Israeli occupation.