HANGERS OBSESSION (2016)
size: 35”x40”14”
medium: used metal hangers, aluminum rods, steel and plastic wires, old photographs
In my works, I use countless Hangers -a reminder of the innocent victims that were forced to throw their clothes behind. My mother was sorting those clothes in Auschwitz- Birkenau. I believe nothing ought to be treated as useless: neither simple objects as empty, used hangers nor the precious Human Beings lives… In many of my works I use copies of my mother’s 8 photographs of her lost family. Here I tore each photo in the middle and separated the torn parts from each other in memory of families that were torn apart. This is my act of “Kriah” (tearing in Hebrew). A Jewish tradition, of tearing shirt, at funeral home, as an expression of grief and pain for a death of a close family relative.
TREASURE BOX (2013)
size: 19”x 14.5”x 14”
The copies of my mother’s 8 family photographs, which she was hiding inside bread in Auschwitz- Birkenau, are hanging on golden chains inside a box that is a prison. On the floor, you see dark black bread with one photograph peeking out. I remember when I created the “Treasure Box” I was thinking about these people in the photographs - my family- that I will never know.
REMAINS OF FOOD (2014)
The shelf next to the treasure box seems to me as a graveyard, a round bread with a photograph peeking out of it, among many slices of dry bread. I viewed the bread slices as broken tombstones, and imagined my mother’s 8 found photographs popping from under the ‘stones’ of bread. I feel like in a middle of a Nightmare… haunted by those photographs; which seem to me like spirits, symbolizing many other lost humans that didn’t have the chance to be buried in a graveyard, whose remains are in unknown places.
NOT A PICNIC BASKET (2016)
size: 34”x 32”x 28”
Medium: Used basket, fabric, metal hangers, wire fence, dry bread, old photographs, glue
My mother was hiding 8 photographs of her lost family in between 2 pieces of dark bread.
I created 8 sandwiches, to honor each of the found photos, and put them inside an old, reused basket. The basket is standing on top of a bloody red ‘blanket’; inside the basket striped clothes are under the sandwiches with a wire fence is cover.
