ON Gallery invites to the opening of the exhibition "Unfolding Memoris", October 4. 2006, 7.00 pm
8.00 pm. - performance - Home, of Course - Adina Bar-On
October 2, 7 pm. near former Synagogue (ul. Wroniecka, Poznan) - audio-installation - Adina Bar-On
"Our journey to Poland marks the beginning of a mutual correspondence between artists from On Gallery, the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan and the Israeli artists' delegation. This just born relationship will hopefully lead to a creative dialog between artists from two regions that have many common yesterdays. Our arriving to Polish soil is certainly toned with expectation and increasing emotion. Although a foreign country, Poland is not an unfamiliar location and it definitively has a particular significance. It reminds us, in a certain way, of the flavor of home.
We feel driven to the local land and culture, basically due to the stories of our own families that lived in the region many years ago. Stories filled with instances of happiness and joy, yet stained at times with bitter memories of sorrow and despair.
It seems that the past has left a non-erasable mark, even though it has not been our own.
There is an urge to dive through the surface in search of recollections, in order to get to the core. And for us, this is almost essential."
Liliana Kadichevski, October, 2006
Adina Bar-On's performance Home, of course, is an attempt to question what appears as the inevitability of destruction that lies in the process of construction. In her work Sacrifice, a recorded voice piece (16:30 minutes), which was produced by Totamto Art & Media in Warsaw, emotions form in vocal enunciations and melodic structures reminiscent of marches, lullabies, women's chatter, the cry of a baby, screams and anguish. Victor Petrov, curator of the Navinki Festival of International Performance Art '02 (Minsk, Belarus) has written in its catalogue:
"The powerful vocal sounds accompanying it are like associations with femininity, love, and the origins of life."
Doron Furman's video installation "Names" is divided in 3 parts. On one screen, a class in the Gymnasium is shown, while the second screen shows a journey while following a meat truck along the highway and on the third screen, an empty Jewish country house from the 1914-1920 pogroms period is depicted. His works relate to his own family's heritage. Through his search, he attempts to discover something deeper and meaningful within this past.
Iris Hever is presenting her video installation Belongings, a video piece from the documentation of the withdrawal from Gaza. It is screened on a monitor placed into a container hanging from the ceiling.
"The container was maybe the dramatic step that was taken by the Israeli government at the settlements. People that lived there had to leave their houses in favor of steps towards peace. This situation reminded me of my parents, who left their 'Meat Pot', their homes in Sheidletz, Poland and started to wander around Europe. Politically, there are many differences between these two events, yet in this piece I choose to refer to the moment of being in the air, mentally.
The time when your home is burning under your feet, the moment in which you have to choose between life of prosperity or death, this is the time when the disconnection might turn to be freedom".
Liliana Kadichevski's video installation Forest wispers displays three separated projections. In Thunderbirds, two birds are dancing in a gracefully slow paced daily ritual, patiently waiting for the daily prey. In Kiwi's wish, a dancer moves at nature sounds' pace. In one of the screenings, she is waiving her arms in an endlessly attempt to fly, in the other, her feet and the shadows of her extended hands move in a clockwise circular motion.
"The uncertainty; the uncovered weakness; the numbness into which humankind has submerged throughout history, particularly at times of conflict, has blurred the path home".
"...We live in a time of revolt. In our ships we conduct, as our passengers - voices from uprisings and destruction. We filter through our senses - flames of war and revolutions".
"...This is not a time for literary experiments. An entire generation bleeds from their throats, bitter from their spirits. An entire generation stands hurt, run or lie with convulsions. Shock in the depths. Smoke on the plains. And talents are sparks. They are not visible in time of fire..."
"ON" Gallery in Poznan
Fredry 7 Street, 61-701 Poznan
free.art.pl/on_gallery