Kollektive
Verinnerung
Berlin 2019
Installation.
Ink & fluorescent light on mulberry paper
Verquere Verortungen.
Festival Jüdischer Literaturen.
Literaturhaus.
A vast cultural diversity of Jewish diasporic narratives weaves a rich tapestry in Berlin's cultural space. “Verquere Verortungen” festival showcases and explores Jewish literature in the German context. I was commissioned to create a collaborative multilingual visual poetry installation, in German, Hebrew, Arabic, integrating poems by Max Czollek (Berlin) and Zehava Khalfa (Israel, Libyan origin).
The installation, which is set to examine diverse diasporic Jewish narratives, is structured like a labyrinth that consists of 20 unequal parts. It utilises the ambient light in the space as it behaves in response: during the day, only certain sections are visible, while at night, the entire poems are revealed. This technique highlighted the concealed messages within the poetry used.
"Verinnerung may be related to the ability to confront one's own memory in writing. Because memory is full of fantasies about who we were and who we have become it works as a basis for our contemporary perception of self and world. Thus, opening one's writing to alternative narratives and images also means work on ones perception of Jiddishkeit and self in relation to the outside world."
Max Czollek
shabatai zvi (1626-1676),
#annefrank (1929-1994),
max von oppenheim (1860-1946), dutch schultz (1901-1935)
(kosher nostra 2019)
"Verinnerung is the tension between the perception of reality and reality itself. Which is unimaginable and is flexible and chewy like gum and loses shape and takes shape and is swallowed for each. My attempt to capture memory and to know it fades as soon as I hold it and becomes a desert sand."
Zehava Khalfa
יָכוֹל לִהְיוֹת, עוֹד פַּעַם,
עוֹד מְעַט קַיִץ, תַּבְלִינִים,
מֵאָז שֶׁעָזַבְתִּי
(2018-2019)