1999
- 2000
WIGMORE
FINE ART
Exile
Sharon
Gershoni, Julia Guest, Rula Halawani,
Gordon Hon,
Chen
Shish, Louise Short, Subhi Zobaidi
Organized
by Multi-Exposure British-Israeli-Palestinian
Awards
The
original award scheme, 'Double Exposure',
was set up in 1993 by photographer
Sandra Jacobs to promote cultural
exchange between Britain and Israel
through the medium of photography.
During its first five years, the awards
were given to British and Israeli
photographers and artists, enabling
them to spend a month in each other's
country, explore themes of interest,
acquaint themselves with a foreign
lifestyle and culture and produce
a personal project. The works created
were presented each year in two complementary
exhibitions held in Israel and the
UK. This year the scheme has been
broadened to become tripartite, involving
British, Palestinian and Israeli artists,
under the new title 'Multi-Exposure'
This year the scheme also has, for
the first time, a specific theme:
Exile.
Sharon Gershoni
Gershoni, a photographer, was born
and brought up in Israel to a British
mother and Israeli father. Her mother's
connection to England remained very
strong. The artist's journey was a
journey to discover the history and
meaning of her British background
She wanted to connect faraway memories
with tangible, physical spaces.
Julia
Guest
Guest, a graduate of Goldsmith's College,
London, is a press photographer exploring
current sociopolitical tensions in
the form of a photo-essay. During
her visit to Israel, Guest has tried
to document how Bedouin society copes
with fundamental changes in lifestyle,
and the ways in which the Israeli
and Palestinian societies respond
to these processes.
Rula
Halawani
Halawani is a Palestinian press photographer
and artist. For this project, she
has documented the lives of expatriate
families not just from the Occupied
Territories but also India, China
and various Arab countries, focusing
on the experience of immigration and
exile.
Gordon
Hon (Britain)
Hon has worked with film and video.
In his current project, 'Fantastic
Ruins', he follows the interwoven
processes of construction and desertion
of the settlements and new housing
projects in Israel and the Occupied
Territories.
Chen
Shish
Shish is the daughter of immigrants
from Tunisia who settled in the northern
Israeli city of Safed. During her
stay in London, Chen has reconnected
to her Tunisian roots to create a
body of work which combines the 'found'
and the manufactured, East and West,
the private self and the public self.
Louise
Short
Short is a Bristol-based artist whose
work is comprised mainly of processes
of collection and classification of
materials, alongside still photographs
and Super-8 film. She traveled to
Israel to come to terms with, and
relate to, the life and works of Meir
Agassi, an Israeli artist and writer
who lived in Bristol. Meir, his wife
and son were killed in a tragic accident
in 1998.
Subhi
Zobaidi
Zobaidi chose to explore the different
themes of 'Exile' through a performance
he initiated and produced during his
stay in London. The performance featured
a recreation of a street where many
years ago a Palestinian artist named
Najil Ali was murdered. Zobaidi chose
to use the murder story as an allegory
for the condition of exile. His work
for the exhibition consisted of still
photographs from the performance.
