Roger Grasas
HA ARETZ
the Promised Land

The HA ARETZ project—an expression in Hebrew that alludes to the Promised Land—proposes a visual reinterpretation of biblical landscapes from the perspective of a disturbing present, marked by alienation, armed conflict, and techno-capitalism. Developed between 2010 and 2019, it is based on an exhaustive investigation of biblical studies and the origin of monotheisms.

From a methodological point of view, Ha Aretz is articulated from an extensive collection of images captured over a dozen trips through the territories that today make up the ancient Holy Land: Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. The project accurately documents, with historiographical precision, the locations in which, according to tradition, some of the most emblematic episodes of the Holy Scriptures would have taken place: Genesis, Exodus, the life of the Prophets, as well as the birth, miracles, and passion of Jesus of Nazareth. As a testimony to the powerful binomial that capitalism and technology represent today, HA ARETZ questions the contemporary role of religious faith, while inviting reflection on the evolution—or involution—of the ancestral regions of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea, traditionally considered the cradle of civilizations and the epicenter of Jewish, Christian, and Arab cultures.