Developed while in residence at Artport 2014, Visit Palestine: Change Your View will be presented alongside other works produced by Public Studio. Public Studio was founded in 2009, by filmmaker Elle Flanders and architect Tamira Sawatzky who live in Toronto. Together, and often in collaboration with others, they produce large-scale film installations, public art works and other media works that are formed within a socially engaged practice.

Visit Palestine: Change Your View, is a travel agency that was launched by Public Studio running from April to May 2014. Through an intricate research process, the artists developed a series of tours to the West Bank for a variety of interested individuals from artist and curators to engineers. In explaining the purpose of this project, the artists state: “After many years of working across borders, we are often asked: “What is it like over there? How can you go back and forth? Aren’t you frightened? I would go, but as an Israeli, I can’t.” We felt the only way to actually reframe the general view of Palestine and to challenge misconceptions was to engage people in our art process in order to literally change their view. Playing on tourism as a nation-building project, we created a travel agency in our studio along with traditional advertising style posters that aim to seduce one into joining a tour . We then customized tours for individuals including traditional activities of tourism within the larger political tour.”