Post-colonialism

Does post-colonialism transform the identity of people involved?
How does the construction of walls in urban landscapes affect the relations among the citizens?

“The Broken Embraces” are metaphors for walls. The walls can protect territories against the aggression of another, but also can produce very aggressive action to other people. The new walls in between the territories of Israel and Palestine are the focus of this work.
These walls look like embraces that change the urban landscape and social environment.

My work ‘Broken Embraces’ consists of a series of architectonic shapes that incorporate clay collected in Hebron and the Golan Heights area in Israel. I used the clay as a symbolic and political element. The installation speaks of my experiences of walls and checkpoints, and includes a video of children crossing the notorious Hebron checkpoint in the center of the old city. The video captures the insidious normalization of this inhumane system of population control, and engages subtly with a subversive form of parody of the invisible guards, as an impatient adolescent bangs a turnstile gate.

Before starting my artist and residency project at Tel Hai Art College I travelled extensively in and around the region of the West Bank (Bethlehem, Ramallah, Jericho, Hebron and Nablus). The result of this Post-colonialism international project was exhibited in Benjamini Contemporary Ceramics Center in Tel Aviv in between November 2016 until January of 2017. Curator of this project was Wendy Gerst.