35 Sentences on Palestine, Billboard at PAVED Arts in Saskatoon, Canada, from September 17 - November 1, 2025. By Keeley Haftner.
Keeley Haftner, 35 Sentences on Palestine, 2025
Artistic reference: Sol LeWitt, Sentences on Conceptual Art, 1969
This work adapts Sol LeWitt’s 1969 Sentences on Conceptual Art as a conceptual framework for a series of 35 concise, rigorously sourced statements on Palestine. Each sentence distills verifiable information—from international law, humanitarian organizations, and independent journalism—into declarative form. The language was edited in collaboration with OpenAI’s ChatGPT (ChatGPT-5o), ensuring the phrasing reflects the incontestability of the cited sources.
Presented as a large-scale billboard on 20th Street at PAVED Arts in Saskatoon, Canada, the piece integrates a QR code that links viewers to a full, annotated document (below). This extended text elaborates on each statement with contextual detail, citations, and examples, drawing from United Nations resolutions, legal frameworks, reputable media outlets, and NGOs such as Amnesty International.
By reconfiguring LeWitt’s conceptual strategy toward urgent political realities, Haftner underscores the capacity of text-based art to serve both as critique and as documentation. The work situates Palestine within a conceptual art lineage while foregrounding it as “the greatest moral issue of our time.”
Special thanks to Said Abdelhadi of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) Saskatoon, and to PAVED Arts.
