TEMPUS NON REDDITUR

Description

Artist Notes

This artwork reflects the inability to return to Gaza for visits, even after many years. As the title, Tempus Non Reditur, suggests, it marks a point of no return. Each ticket represents a country or region I visited. While I was able to travel the world, I could not visit Gaza and return from a short visit until 2022, after sixteen years. This work continues a series of artworks and collections focused on travel, borders, and exile. The Israeli stamp is the document I received and was forced to sign when I attempted to return to Gaza. The other stamps represent Israel’s colonial policies, ranging from denial and refusal to being marked as “not allowed.” This artwork is deeply personal and carries psychological and emotional associations shared by many Gazans.

Preservation Notes

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION This is a physical mixed-media work, catalogued as "Mixed media on canvas", measuring 46 x 38 cm. The support is canvas. The record's description establishes that the surface is built up as a collage of accumulated travel ephemera: airline tickets and boarding passes documenting more than two decades of travel across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, together with border and refusal-of-entry documentation. Applied colour is described as stark red stamp imagery, blue Hebrew text reading "Notice of Refusal of Entry" repeated five times, and passages of black obscuring the printed dates on the ephemera while destinations remain legible. The specific paint or ink binder is not stated in the record. No condition assessment is made here; the physical work has not been examined. CONSERVATION REQUIREMENTS The canvas support should be kept in stable relative humidity and away from direct sunlight, dusted with a soft dry brush only, and the stretcher supported whenever the work is handled. The collage elements govern the treatment of this work. Tickets, boarding passes, printed border documents and other paper ephemera are acidic commercial stocks that were never manufactured to last; continued deterioration (embrittlement, discolouration, adhesive failure) must be treated as an ongoing risk. Assessment by a paper conservator is recommended, along with protection from light, moisture and oxygen, and encapsulation of loose or detached ephemera where appropriate. Any lifting edges at collage overlaps should be consolidated before the work is handled or framed. Do not dry-mount and do not use pressure-sensitive tape on any paper element; use acid-free, lignin-free materials for any mounting or backing. Do not apply solvents to painted or sealed passages. UV-filtering glazing is recommended in all cases, and the saturated reds, yellows and oranges (here principally the prominent red stamp passages) are the areas most at risk of fading. DIGITAL RECORD The original capture was scanned in Sweden as a TIFF master in high, medium and low resolution variants. Those masters are held outside this archive, and the file uploaded here is a converted derivative rather than the master. CURRENT ASSET: JPEG, 362 x 369 pixels, 47 KB. At 300 DPI this permits a maximum reproduction size of approximately 1.2 in on the long edge. This file is a low-resolution derivative and is inadequate for print reproduction or detailed study. The high-resolution TIFF master must be sourced and uploaded before this work is sold, printed, or reproduced.

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