Write for Gilad

a collage work presented at the Dana Art Gallery group exhibition Alter Ego (5-26 October 2011, Odeon Theatre, Bucharest).

More photos from the opening on Alina Manole’s website.

The Story of this Paper-work

I imagined five “letters” for Gilad Shalit, starting from the name of a website created within the campaign that tried to reach to this Israeli soldier captured by Hamas.

I thought about the essential things he was missing: freedom, his parents, friends-love-joy, food and learning.

I also thought about the prayers and I remembered my passion for the Psalms from which I once copied and annotated but more underlined a lot of verses.

I scanned 29 pages like the ones from above and I selected then parts of them as the raw material for these digital collages:

Which I printed and “crinkled” to give them the spatial forms I imagined, and added to each one different elements: photos, drawings, origami birds, a matza piece, a book etc.

Gilad was released on the 18th of October that year, so during the exhibition. Of course, having nothing to do with my “call”. Even at the opening, the silence about this subject was deafening. The art critic who presented us, the 10 participant artists with their diverse “alter ego” proposals, chose to mention only another work from my portfolio (The Icon of the Parables) he discovered on my blog, not making any connection whatsoever with the present one. But this is what brings me back to the beginning of this story, to the motivation I had to create this work ( because I make connections): the Silence.