Between States

Between States addresses relationships between aesthetics and politics through the exploration of different locations and political conditions. The book focuses on the complex geography of Israel/ Palestine, where borders and the nature of political statehood remain unresolved. The title Between States refers to the unfinished political nature of this area, while also describing the condition of in-between-ness defined by the book itself as it shifts from artistic concerns to more explicitly political subjects. This in-between-ness also relates to the complex spatial relationships between the UK, Israel, and the West Bank that were involved in the development of the dialogue between the two authors. Between States is made up of a set of textual and visual fragments that move the reader between different forms of representation and knowledge: from paintings to photographic images and from texts involving varying degrees of abstraction to first-person accounts of places and events. The uncertainty that defines the political conditions explored through these different forms is echoed in the sense of uncertainty created by the overall format of the book. This format is intended to help the reader make their own connections between different images and textual narratives, and through this to explore the themes of the project in an open way. As well as paintings by Reeb and photographs and articles by both authors, the book also includes works by other visual producers, such as Hans Haacke, Peter Kennard, Miki Kratsman, and ActiveStills.