The universally human experiences of destruction, loss, trauma, and memory are bound in metaphors of natural disasters. The installation, Through the Fog, the Distance unpacks these metaphors and explores the paradox between loss and coming together in communities affected by a natural disaster. A trail of contemporary ruins, lamps, toys, electronics, shelves, overflow the space, overwhelming the viewer with a sense of demolition and loss. Small-scale family portraits rendered in black paper are nested in some of the boxes, picture frames, or pots, casting shadows of their absence on objects left behind. Here, there is a dissonance between raw material and a delicate technique, between the overt and covert, visible and invisible, excess and absence. The domestic debris streams from a static white wall representing the void created when physical realities cease to exist and memories gradually fade away. On the opposite side of the wall from which the heavy heap pours is a narrow corridor is filled with some 200 works on paper in the artist’s signature technique of of carefully cut paper. The negative and positive space of the cut-paper works depict disasters in a range of diverse geographical and cultural loci, accentuating universality. The stories elicit identification and compassion, generating a collective memory of loss for people from different cultural, political, and historical places.

Through the Fog, the Distance | Wilfrid Museum, Israel, April - July 2014

Curators: Anat Turbowicz, Shir Yamaguchi