Lydda Airport

Overview

Lydda Airport is a short film named after the facility built in 1930 in what was then known as the British Mandate of Palestine. Constructed by the British, Lydda Airport was an important stop along the ‘Empire Route’ for their national airline, Imperial Airways. Until 1939 it was the world’s largest aerodrome.

Central to the film’s narrative is Hannibal, one of the eight planes that made up the Handley Page fleet, the largest passenger planes in the world at that time. In 1940, Hannibal mysteriously disappeared somewhere over the Gulf of Oman en route to Sharjah. The film was also inspired by Edmond Tamari, a transport company employee from Jaffa, who received a communication that he should take a bouquet of flowers to Lydda Airport and wait for the arrival of Amelia Earhart to welcome her to Palestine. She never arrived.

On the 11th of July 1948 Lydda Airport was captured by the Israeli Defense Forces and renamed Lod International Airport. In 1974 the airport was renamed Ben Gurion International Airport.

Alongside the film, Jacir showed a scale model of the airport cast in white urethane and epoxy.


April 2011

This project was part of Sharjah Biennial 10

Courtesy of the Artist and Alexander and Bonin, New York.
Commissioned by the Pick Laudati Fund for Arts Computing, Northwestern. Additional thanks to Civitella Ranieri.