Can look-alikes ease the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Look-alikes wanted," said a half-page advertisement published last week in the news pages of Haaretz Hebrew edition, offering NIS 8,000 to anyone who knew individuals resembling the eight people whose head shot appeared in the ad. A fine-print clarification explained that the award for finding a single face double was NIS 1,000, to be divided equally between the person who sent in the photo and the subject of the photo. The ad was signed Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council.

A spokesman for the Swiss embassy in Tel Aviv said the embassy assisted Swiss artist Olivier Sutter with the ad. Sutter said this week that the ad was designed to help him with a project called "Enemies" which focuses on "the absurd manner in which we identify the other, often based on prejudices and historical misunderstandings." Sutter, a leading artistic director in Switzerland, has been following the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for years.

"I did a similar project in Belgium. I found people who looked alike from the Flemish-speaking and French-speaking populations, in an attempt to present the cultural division that causes tensions."

This week Sutter will visit Israel to look at the photos sent in response to the ad and to convince the suitable candidates to participate in the project. At the end of the search process he plans to invite four pairs of Israeli-Palestinian look-alikes for a photo session, the results of which will be featured at an exhibition in Switzerland in April. The exhibition is scheduled to travel to several African states afterward. Sutter dreams of showing the project in Israel, too, but at the moment has no budget and no exhibition space.

	The advertisement posted by Olivier Sutter.