Alona Rodeh - Architecture of the Night. In this project, Rodeh takes over the space to the last detail. The work includes a video made in collaboration with a Fire Department that examines warning signs and the visual urban signs that surround us. The way Rodeh used the people and objects of the Department to create an artwork really inspired me. I hope to achieve such a level of impeccability someday.
When I conceptualize the works, they usually stem from things around me. I recently moved to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem, and suddenly my surrounding changed. I began noticing the aesthetics of the city. A frequent starting point for my practice is the urban natural world – dogs, cats, plants… things that surround humans. They create a sense of nostalgia in me, for the most primal human nature.
My current exhibition at Rosenfeld Gallery, "Safari", examines exactly this. The safari is a space where you observe animals, and in the exhibition, viewers are invited to observe animals and objects that are part of our everyday lives. I am interested in how we interact with what is not human around us - the animals that live with us and the plants we grow. The cultural space of dogs, for instance, intrigues me. The dog is a domesticated wild animal, and I am interested in how it adapted to living with humans while holding its innate nature. We, humans, also hold imprinted characteristics, regardless of how cultural we wish to be. The dog symbolizes for me my longing for this primal nature. I look at Tel Aviv and try to find this type of nature in it. I try to create this nature for myself.
Shai Dror, 31, photographer. Raised in Jerusalem, lives in Tel Aviv.
I am mostly a photographer, working with both video and still photography. Lately, I've been also sculpting. Other than that, I am a lighting designer and technician, and my artistic work includes light installations. I studied art in high school and photographed using film, which was very exciting at the time. During my military service, I purchased a digital camera and fell in love with the practice. Today, after completing a BFA at Bezalel, my observation is much deeper, thoughtful, and philosophical. This isn't necessarily a good thing; I lost some of my naivety, and I guess this has something to do with age as well. When I work, certain things occupy my mind, and they determine the medium of the artwork – video, image, or sculpture, for instance. But I always say that foremost, I am a photographer. I see the world in frames, and I think that defines me as a photographer, and not that I produce photographs.
