Position

Arad is a city that eludes any attempt to define it. It is not exactly a suburb. It isn't a wealthy town. It is neither an industrial center, nor an exotic resort. Located far from Israel's center, it is just another stop for tourists on their way to the Dead Sea. There is no dominant cultural group that determines its character. In a way, Arad is shaped in the eyes of its beholder. The material which it offers to the artist includes urban architecture, desert landscapes, mountain ridges, bright sunlight and the people who participate in the internal dialogue of the place.
These people assert their own presence, refusing to be easily classified into specific socio-economical backgrounds or to become objects of an anthropologist’s gaze. The deep disconnectedness of the city, and the surrealism of its location allow them to exist being real people as well as symbolic figures.

What are the details that are needed to identify a person? Is it age, gender, marital status, health condition, professional success, financial prosperity? To what extent can these details be determined by an eye? And what happens when our assumptions are challenged? We are constantly mapping ourselves in the world, each time defining new destination points, gripping onto points around which our identity is woven; but a single shock, or change of perspective is enough to make all we know about ourselves -collapse. When our coordinates lose their meaning we are left horrified in the face of uncertainty.

My photography is based on the principle of metonymy. Unlike a metaphor, which functions by connecting similar signifiers (the woman's blue eyes and the blue sea become 'the sea in her eyes', molded into a single image, deprived of autonomic existence), the metonymy functions by means of the signifier's mere touch. In my case, the concrete touch in specific space and time reflects on things and positions, forging connections and creating complex relationships between them, whilst preserving their separate identities. The metonymy enables the photographed subject to preserve its secrets and its singularity, and at the same time it makes the subject a key for deciphering the complex mental state which is in place in the moment of seeing.