With their ongoing project Anti-Mapping Miki Kratsman and Shabtai Pinchevsky seek to survey and document the geography of the Palestinian areas as a necessary alternative to the official Israeli photographic registrations. Military considerations have imposed restrictions on the representations – among other things the aerial photo must work with a reduced number of pixels (compared with international standards). This is done to limit what the population is actually allowed to see. This muddied map production means that small settlements are easier to relocate or remove, and it thus becomes a matter of the exercise of power.
Kratsman and Pinchevsky want to show more than the Israeli state does, with precise, detailed images with high resolution, performed partly using drone photography. Each image is accompanied by an exact mathematical indication of its position. The area that they map, Khan al-Ahmar, consists of 12 Palestinian settlements which together count 1400 inhabitants. These communities are scattered over each side of the Jerusalem-Jericho road, in the industrial zone of the Ma’ale Adumim settlement. The people who live there have low incomes, no welfare or education, and lack fundamental infrastructure. It is a limbo-like existence that is shown in their series, an existence not officially meant to be depicted. Thanks to Kratsman and Pinchevsky these places in danger of obliteration are made visible, both on the map and in reality.
