The battle for art in a war zone

Six months ago the director of the Artists' House in Jerusalem was talking to me about the plans for her gallery during this year's Israel Festival, the most prestigious arts event in that country. She was excited by the underlying theme that the organisers had established: human rights. As she spoke, the distant sound of shelling broke the silence of the day.

"Why don't you curate the show?" she demanded. A human-rights exhibition in a society at war. How could I refuse?

The first step of any curatorial project is to understand the context in which the show will be seen. The next is to bring together a group of artists who might respond with sensitivity to the theme or context. In the end, you hope to develop new relationships between one artist and another, between artist and audience, and bind it all together with a strong sense of place.

Safely back in London, I decided I would not show Israeli artists while Palestinians could not feel equally at ease to participate. I have brought together artists from both sides in previous shows, but these days the journey from East to West Jerusalem is impassable.

This time I chose to focus on those artists whose work had addressed identity, place and issues of displacement in other parts of the world. They, I thought, could provide models that might resonate here. I included a film of an Asian slum that looks like an old master painting, a video of an artist marking territory by kicking a can around Harlem, photographs of the social and territorial gaps left by the Northern Ireland Troubles, and images of the new South Africa mediated by an artist who conscientiously refused to make a single work of art throughout apartheid. I selected artists that I knew would be critical of the situation. But I wanted them to be critical while being in Jerusalem, at the heart of the conflict.

But, one by one, they fell away. Each artist offered one excuse or another. For some it was simply fear of suicide bombers. One Muslim artist feared for her family back home. Most of the excuses were rooted in politics, or possibly ideology covering for anxiety. It is hard to argue a defence when feelings run so deep. A South African friend stated succinctly: "I cannot forgive Israel", invoking - inappropriately, to my mind - the dark history of apartheid. Such was their adamancy that I began to question my own ethical position. But I, as curator, had a duty to carry on; if all the open minds were to stay away from Jerusalem, the field would be left to fanatics. Only one artist, Narelle Jubelin, an Australian based in Madrid, trusted me enough to stay on board. Narelle's work addresses the remnants of colonial histories by means of objects and stories as they pass from one place to another, changing meaning, adding resonance. Part research and archival project, part cultural reclamation, her work often consists of tiny needlework renderings of found images, with interpolated texts. Together they have a cumulative effect, conflating several histories at once. But for all its rigour, when placed in the gallery, hers is a modest, quiet project.

For months, Narelle and I were glued to the nightly news reports. The show was on. It was off. It was on again. Then, two months ago, after almost nightly suicide bombings and West Bank incursions, I decided that Narelle and her six-month old baby should not be exposed to what one Israeli friend called "this damaged city". It wasn't just the danger. What would she have to learn from an experience of restricted movements and fear at every street corner?

Finally, the time for the show has arrived and I've made the trip alone. There is no joy here in Jerusalem. But I am here, because I feel I have to be. There's no one on the streets, and I'm one of two guests in my hotel, apparently. I've never seen the rumoured other. The absent Narelle has become something of a celebrity in Jerusalem. The show is being given a great deal of attention, simply because it is one of very few international projects that will be seen here in the foreseeable future.

But the absent artist makes her presence felt in many ways. The exhibition will evolve throughout its duration. I write to Narelle every day, several times a day, and she reinscribes edited versions of my texts on to art boards in silverpoint. Our exchanges refer directly to the current situation. A view from inside mediated from outside. She is also making one needlework rendering after another of a single object designed by Le Corbusier's pupil Eileen Gray for her modernistically restrained house in the South of France. The resonances between that artist's house and this one in Jerusalem are typical of Narelle's subtle critique.

Meanwhile, I act as Narelle's eyes in a city where going for a walk on the street is a political act. I see my words come back as works of art a day or so after I write them, in FedEx bags. I place them with ritual care on a continuous shelf that runs from room to room throughout the space. The shelf is 140cm from the ground - a measurement taken from Narelle's shoulder. She's not here, but a visitor to the show told me that the measurement made the viewer begin to construct an impression of who she might be.