Holot
3 channel video projection, stereo sound, large black sack, sand, gravel | 2015
Made in collaboration with Or Porat
Large rocks that collapse and crumble in the mountains of East Africa, at the origin of the river Neil, make their way through over six thousand kilometres until they reach the shores of Israel. In a long filtration and deconstruction process they are being worn down, broken apart, and turned into sand. Upon reaching the shores, they scatter in the wind, finishing their journey as migrating sands.
On the 12 of December 2013 Holot centre was opened. Holot, Hebrew for “sands" or “dunes”, is an open detention centre for asylum seekers from Eritrea and North Sudan. The asylum seekers go through three thousand kilometres via the Egyptian desert until they reach Israel’s border. These asylum seekers are not recognised by the state of Israel as refugees, though they are not being sent back to their country of origin either. Though officially titled “open” detention centre, the three times per day signup restricts their movement and confines them to the desolated desert which surrounds the centre.
The installation moves in a random, fragmented fashion, between the back and forth pacing of the asylum seekers in the wilderness, the grains of sand slowly being drawn down like an hourglass, the echoes of footsteps recorded in the brutal concrete of the Monument to the Negev Brigade, and the viewer, who is suddenly exposed as a bystander by a motion trigger spotlight.
Exhibited in the 40+08 Art Marathon | Be’er Sehva
Curators: Or Frish | Michal Lyptsher