Compost Rich of Resistance: Wayfinding in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem

It is not common to travel to a region searching for what is wrong and askew. But this is precisely how I move through greater Palestine-Israel each time I visit. Explosions and incessant pummeling have forced the sidewalks and retaining walls to heave–Styrofoam slabs serve as an equally hasty and hideous shim. But in this, there is hope. Even where the sidewalk momentarily ends–likely that in just a few months a new road, deeper into the West Bank will be built–it is glaring that these foundations are laid at an unsustainable pace. In a land where the forest often obscures the trees, noticing the nuances of demolition and decay have proven integral to my understanding of body-in-place, body-amongst-conflict. In this piece, I describe the embodied experience of encountering the cracks and fissures in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and how in these visible, yet nuanced, interstices there is radical potential