In Exile, 2008, is a photographic collage by Steve Sabella, made up of closeup shots that the artist took from his London apartment a year after he left Jerusalem. The pictures are repeated, mirrored, and disjointed, their recurrent dark blues and sharp silver are oppressive and unrelenting. The main elements of this fragmentary mosaic are the window in the background with the faint yellow light, and in front of it, the imposing and brutal looking barbed wires that fenestrate the entirety of this space.

The work is a reflection on exile and what that might mean. The piece has a menacing cadence to it that is amplified by its impersonal replicas of the same fragments. It suggests that there is no escape to what is behind the wires. Their imposing multiplicity enclose what is beyond them, but it is not clear what might be there, nor does the artist promise a complete and fulfilling answer to that question. The collage itself is held together by the connected lines of the wire, suggesting that the fragmentary nature of the piece does not lend itself to chaos, as much as it ties it down into a semblance of order in the form of repetition. The lights behind the windows are on, but they are blurred and faint, promising only the bare silhouettes of connection with another. Instead, the artwork insists on its sense of fragmentation and incessant alienation, and perhaps the impossibility of escape from that state.

The contemplation of exile brings into the forefront the condition of much of the Palestinian diaspora and refugees. Its repetitive nature points to the perpetual rumination of those in exile, and their inability to penetrate or make coherent meaning of who they can become in their new spaces. Barbed wires often insinuate trespassing across a boundary. This piece asks us to reconsider both the notions of boundary and trespassing in relation to the Palestinian context and beyond it.

Signed, titled, dated and inscribed with edition number ("edition 6/6 +2AP") in English on reverse