acf domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/dev_petachtikvamuseum/dev.petachtikvamuseum.com/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6131sogoacc domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/dev_petachtikvamuseum/dev.petachtikvamuseum.com/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6131Nofar & Shani, 2017, Inkjet print on archival paper<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sagit Friedman Hallel chooses to stage a \u201cdouble image\u201d of identical twin girls, whom she dresses and combs in a style that is reminiscent of the early days of Jewish settlement in the country and the establishment of the State of Israel. She positions them in historic buildings, most of which served as children’s homes, just before they vanish forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The phenomenon of\nidentical twins has always fascinated human thought, due to the\n“double” existence that challenges the identity of the\n“self,” while also embodying the longing for an unmediated\nphysical, mental, and emotional connection with the other. Identical\ntwins have had different iterations in the history of photography,\nfrom Diane Arbus\u2019s iconic twins of 1967 to the works of artists\nlike Peter Zelewski,\nMartin Schoeller, and Loretta Lux.\nFriedman Hallel follows and documents pairs of twins from childhood\nthrough their adolescence. In the careful staging and selection from\nhundreds of frames, she insists on the subtle differences while\nunderscoring the similarities between them. At the same time, she\nbrings to the fore a latent layer of strangeness, alienation, and\ndarkness that is also found in the spaces that she chooses to\nphotograph, some of which serve as a backdrop for the portraits and\nothers are portraits in their own right. Thus, in a\nphotographic-cinematic act, Friedman Hallel introduces questions of\nidentity and perception in the Israeli-local context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe choice of\na double image, in uniform clothing and in institutional spaces,\u201d\nsays the artist, \u201cserves my fascination with the question of\nblurring and erasing individual identity and how it takes shape in\nthe gap between childhood nostalgia and the emotional-social\nproblematics that the history of these sites holds.\u201d One of the\nphotographed locations is the Weingarten Orphanage in Jerusalem,\nwhich was documented by photographer Tsadok Bassan in the early 20th<\/sup>\ncentury,1<\/sup><\/a>\nand serves as a point of connection through which Friedman Hallel\njoins and corresponds with the history of Israeli photography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \nThe forced gaze that Friedman Hallel composes through the medium of\nphotography produces a visual language that offers further\nexamination of our apprehension and consciousness as individuals and\nas a society. The artist and the exhibition\u2019s curator Reut Ferster\nchose to present the works in a methodical, almost clinical layout,\nwhich traps us without offering respite. It forces the viewer to\nclosely observe the figures and places, while contemplating on the\nvery act of looking and the manner in which it can either reaffirm\nthe conventional perception or resurge the particular and individual\nexistence.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irena Gordon<\/p>\n\n\n\n