Salt Crystal Bridal Gown 1-8,2014
Archival inkjet prints, 163 × 109 cm
Transformation and metamorphosis are my keywords. Sharing the process is sometimes part of the performative and experimental aspects of my work. Presenting traces and findings. In The Dybbuk: Between Two Worlds, a famous early-20th-century theater play, the Russian-Israeli diva Hanna Rovina performed as Lea, a young woman who is forced to marry against her will, despite being promised since childhood to another man: Hanan, her beloved soulmate. Hanan dies of grief early in the play, but his spirit possesses Lea on her wedding night. When Hanan’s voice speaks through Lea’s body, Hanna Rovina is dressed in a black dress identical to her white bridal gown. Only after a successful exorcism is performed does the dybbuk surrender to patriarchy, and Lea’s body and soul are restored. Rovina reappears on stage in her white gown. In the series of eight photographs before you, the black dress is not exchanged or discarded: it is the sea, the place, the salt crystals that bring about a gradual and natural transformation. Little by little, the black Rovina dress became a salt dress fit for a bride - a slightly different bride. A covenant of salt.
My partner in life and work is Yotam From. Yotam is a photographer and also a diver, and to a great extent this exhibition came into being thanks to him and our shared destiny. It is very, very difficult to dive in this sea, as the tendency is to float. Yotam had to attach heavy weights to his body and even tie weights to his camera. Standing in the room here, surrounded by the eight photographs, is a bit like being in an underwater observatory. The deep end of this show - as a viewer you too are submerged.
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