Using paper, cut-out photographs, cardboard, fabric, wire, model cars and even tiny figures, Hourani constructed a scale model of the city that was born from the forced eviction of Palestinians from their homes following the country’s division in 1947.  

Twenty minutes from Jerusalem, the Qalandia checkpoint is one of the largest Israeli military checkpoints in the occupied West Bank, effectively separating Ramallah from Jerusalem and other Palestinian towns and neighbourhoods.

Hourani’s futuristic Qalandia recreates the camp in mimetic detail with its ramshackle houses and crumbling apartment blocks, each like a miniature light box that offer viewers a peak, through film strips, into the inner lives of the imagined occupants.  The work spreads across five plinths and includes the checkpoint, the nearby airport and the monumental dividing security wall, here covered in mirrors that reflect an endless and illusory horizon.

2010