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INDISPLACE
Memories from places I have never visit

What is the meaning of the yearning for a place, the desire to document a place? The quest for a visual image of a world long gone seems to be an age-old need whose roots are difficult to track. Nevertheless, it appears to be ubiquitous, regardless of one's origins. Tourism may well begin at this point: a visit in search for a lost world, an attempt to capture the moment in which it all began, and the desire to recount a story, through which one may construct his/her history, and thereby gain hold of memory. The memory of a place contains its transformations, the movement of things that come and go. People's passage through a place leaves its imprint thereon, bringing about change. In the ancient world, climatic changes dictated human movement.

One is left to admire stories. With out them, places become worthless. Ilit sets out to create a new image of this kind, a place which she alone may transform into a story since it exists for no one but herself. She dreams of a place which is hers alone, a self-invented locus, hence she is the one dictating the story to us. Only through her agency—through her photographic work—can this "place" be experienced, as she concocted it. Myriam creates a new, ostensibly interrupted narrative sequence, leaving open ends for the viewer to stitch together or, possibly, unravel. There is an ending to the story to which she arrived.

In his book Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory, Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi maintains that it takes a community to create and sustain a memory; an individual can neither create nor sustain the continuity of memory by himself: "Only the group can bequeath both language and a trans-personal memory"

Memory is embedded in objects, in stones. An ancient ritual, touching the stone stands for the need to touch upon the spirit of people now gone. The stone generates the memory. One places a stone on a grave, striving to become a part of the memory through the stone—a need translated into the word of God.

I endeavor to pinpoint that sense of yearning for a nonexistent place through the works of the artists in the group.

[Thanks to Patrick Healy for thinking with me]