The black pumps are old, but you would only know it if you looked closely. They are stylish, formal shoes, with a round opening at the toe. Inside, the lining is lightly ripped.
You could easily still wear them, but their owner says she doesn't need them anymore. They are unsuitable for work; unsuitable for washing dishes in a hotel kitchen; unsuitable for scrubbing vegetables, cooking or making beds.
She used to wear them for events and celebrations. But there were never very many of those.
The 54-year-old is the sole bread winner for her 11 children because her husband is sick and has been unable to work for 18 years.
She wants to remain anonymous - but also wants her story to be known. It is important for her that people learn about her life. It is a story that includes her fleeing Beit Natif (now Beit Shemesh) with her parents as a child - first to Jericho, then onto Jordan, until finally they found a new home in Beit Jala.
Now, she is happy that her shoes - and with it, her story - have found a way to cross borders.
Shoes etched with the tracks of a life in Palestine
Shoes for every occasion
It is all thanks to Ulrika Eller-Rüter, a German portrait artist. But it is not faces that Eller-Rütter is concerned with. It's the shoes.
"The ground in Palestine is occupied," said Eller-Rüter, "and I wanted to discover the stories the ground has to tell.
"Who and what walks on this ground? The shoes, and the people?" she continued. "Asking myself, I got the idea to display shoes as a depository for stories and biographies."
Eller-Rüter traveled to Bait Jala, Ubiedyeh, and Ramallah, where she spoke to Palestinian women about their lives. She returned to Germany with 12 pairs of shoes - once owned by the women - for an exhibition at the Frauenmuseum in Bonn.
"I was surprised that these women approached me so openly," said the artist. "Within 15 minutes, they had told me some of the deepest secrets of their lives."
The shoes on display are as individual as their owners' stories.
"There are shoes that were worn for a wedding engagement and shoes that someone bought for their mother with the first money they ever earned," explained Eller-Rüter. "One woman worked at a home for boys and played football in her shoes on Thursdays and Fridays - every pair has a reason for being here."
The shoes also reveal a number of painful stories, as with one woman who never sees her godchild because she is unable to get through the checkpoints along the way.
Another woman lost her son when he fell out of a window.
The rust-portraits will continue to change
Unexpected stories
A lot of the stories are totally unexpected. Often, they are the last thing you might imagine while talking about banal things like shoes.
But shoes do hold a particular significance in Palestine.
"Many women in Palestine wear veils and are covered down to their ankles," said Eller-Rüter, "so shoes can be a form of self-expression."
All the women she met in Palestine wanted to retain their anonymity because they felt awkward about the possibility of being recognized. So she wasn't allowed to record audio or video and had to be careful when taking photos. But she found a way to portray her subjects from the back.
"The idea of oil on canvas seemed inappropriate for the themes of pain, unemployment and having your movement restricted, so I looked for a material on which I could make corrosive engravings and I now work with hydrochloric acid and sheets of iron."
Contours become visible, parts become coarse and uneven, and shapes are smudged. And the rust keeps on spreading. In a few years, Eller-Rüter's women of Palestine will take on a slightly different form.
Art in social hotspots
In 2008, Eller-Rüter founded an institute for art in social hotspots and has traveled to places like South Africa, Romania, and Hungary to work with children. She helps them decorate their classrooms, encourages their creativity, and helps them design their own lives through art.
"Art is what makes people the people they are," said Eller-Rüter.
She would like to see all people, regardless of money or social status, have the chance to discover and define themselves through art.
Ulrika Eller-Rüter plans to send photos of her exhibition to the women of Palestine to show them their shoes, standing on different ground in Germany, and making their stories real for visitors. The shoes are witnesses - a tangible link with the people who once owned them.
In exchange for their old shoes, Eller-Rüter gave them each a new pair. And the new shoes will soon have new stories to tell.
Author: Laura Döing / za
Editor: Kate Bowen
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15620756,00.html
