Paper short abstract:

This paper will deals with two parallel narratives on the Bedouin temporary dwelling: Display and Narrative of the Bedouin tourist initiative "Bawadi" and Display and Narrative of the Israel Museum in relation to their "Bedouin" tent converted into a Jewish Sukkah.

Paper long abstract:

Leading up to the 2014 Sukkot holiday a group of artists decided to delve into the sukkah's charged meaning in the Israeli context and highlight the temporary nature of the sukkah structure and its associations with exile. They decided to focus on Sukkot as a festival commemorating the biblical Jewish "refugee camps" bringing to Jerusalem an "authentic" house from a refugee camp from today's Israel/Palestine. They traveled to an unrecognized Bedouin village at the Judean Desert to meet members of the Jahalin tribe. They proposed to purchase one of their tiny houses, dismantle it, and reassembly it as a sukkah in West Jerusalem. The ephemeral and illegal refugee house was rebuilt and used as a Jewish Sukkah for the Jewish Holiday. A year later the piece was sold to the Israel Museum as an art piece, and the Bedouin community paid half of the amount, playing the Museum a major role in the canonization of an ephemeral and illegal house.

The dismantled Bedouin hut in the desert left an empty space to be filled the same night with a new and stronger cabin. After a couple of months, the al-Korshan dismantled the cabin, leaving only the roof. The interior was arranged with "typical" Bedouin carpets, mattresses. A large piece of new cloth was to hide the ceiling, creating the feeling of being outdoors in a typical Bedouin tent. The new cabin became a focal point for displaying Bedouin culture and hosting tourists visiting the Bawadi eco-tourism project.