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Oceans of Lead - installation
About the installation:
In a dark room scattered ruins lie. Shattered walls and personal artifacts are found
between the relics. A TV set keeps running long after the house was blown to bits.
The image is shown to the viewer's eye through a reflection in a broken mirror. This is
where the magical and innocent childhood memories mix with the monstrosity of war.
On one wall fragments from a verse from the Old Testament randomly appear
and disappear.
This text is sung in Hebrew in the second half of the video, but the text
on the wall would accompany the work, not as subtitles, but as a presence on its own
right.
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Oceans of Lead - video
In January 2009 in the midst of "Operation Cast Lead" and the bombings on Gaza by
the Israeli Air Force, I visited the Kibbutz where I grew up. I went to the place where
we used to play in the forest, as children. I went to the "oceans"?
The oceans is the name we gave the little rain puddles that filled up every winter in
the forest overlooking Jezreel Valley. Inside these oceans the forest, in all its celestial
beauty, reflects, to create an astonishing sight.
Standing there, that January afternoon, I saw the forest shaking to the sound of Air Force bombers headed for the war.
The deep contradiction between the beauty of that magical afternoon and the sounds
of war in the background put me in a state of shock. The brutal sights of war
flickering on the television screen seemed to unite with the shivering reflections of the
forest in the oceans.
The white phosphorus shells, the valley, and sights of a childhood long gone, all shimmer in the oceans. The oceans of cast lead.
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Oceans of Lead - installation- sentencesOn one wall fragments from a verse from the Old Testament randomly appear
and disappear.
This text is sung in Hebrew in the second half of the video, but the text
on the wall would accompany the work, not as subtitles, but as a presence on its own
right.
"The LORD was not in the wind.
After the wind there was an earthquake,
the LORD was not in the earthquake.
After the earthquake came a fire,
the LORD was not in the fire.
After the fire came a gentle whisper."
(1Kings 19:11-12)
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