Covilhã, Portugal

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When confronted with criticism of the actions of the state and society of which they are a part, many Israelis invoke the colonial histories and historical injustices of others as a means of situating themselves outside the terms of that critique.

While these histories are real, it is also frequently mobilized to obscure and justify the ongoing violence enacted against Palestinians, as though the colonial crimes of others provide a form of moral exemption from accountability.

This installation takes place across two distant sites within the mountainside landscape of Covilhã, Portugal. At each location, a sign posing a question faces the other across a span too broad for it to be legible or read; only through a telescope can the corresponding text be seen.

Sometimes distance is needed in order to gain perspective, of one another and of ourselves.

While the settler colonialism enacted by the Zionist movement and later the Israeli state in Palestine that continues to this day differs from Portugal’s imperial colonialism throughout its various colonies, both continue to shape the political and psychological conditions through which our respective realities are understood, inherited, narrated, and projected.

The questions in this work attempt to implicate and destabilize one another, and attempt to create a dynamic in which there is opportunity to reflect on our own place within these structures of power that are ultimately intertwined. Rather than externalizing colonial pasts and presents, the work suggests a form of inward reflection toward our respective positions within them.

If we are to truly confront and reckon with this in an honest and sincere way, we must view the elaborate mechanisms as a common foundation in order to imagine new political realities beyond the paradigms that have been offered to us for hundreds of years.

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This intervention was created as part of the 2026 edition of WOOL Festival.

Photos by Miguel Oliveira