A new cluster of exhibitions, Ma Nishtana? (What Has Changed?), is currently on view in the alternative space of Beit Hankin in Kfar Yehoshua. Curated by Neta Haber and Merav Rahat, it includes three exhibitions: Spaces of Time, Spaces of Action and White Lily. Each offers a different view of the time we are living through: Spaces of Time, an endlessly recurring succession of wars; Spaces of Action, works that attest to human compassion and humanitarian action; White Lily, repetitive labor as a tool of hope. In a curatorial approach made possible by the nature of the office space in Kfar Yehoshua, twelve rooms connected by corridors, the exhibitions mingle with one another, blurring boundaries between time and space, between what was and what is, and examining the place and meaning of artistic action in times of crisis.

The exhibition opens with a painting by Said Abu Shakra from the series Animals, part of the October 2023 series born during the war. A hyena: seemingly a demonic animal and an aggressive enemy dangerous to humans, yet in reality a scavenger of ecological importance. A terrifying representation of fears and anxieties, but at the same time a reflection of misconceptions that often lead us to fateful choices.

Sima Meir presents a series of works referring to war mosaics from Israel and around the world. Archaeological remains from Israel and elsewhere are painted on foam boards, expressing disappointment in what humankind does and leaves behind for future generations. In this cluster of exhibitions, her works recur in the different rooms, accompanying visitors like a constant frequency that makes distant histories of wars and battles present, a reminder that nothing has changed.

Guy Levy presents a large-scale triptych of the shadows of figures setting out for battle in intense red and blue. It fills the space with a blurred memory of the blaze of war and the presence of the heavy shadows it casts. Absent-present figures rush again and again from memory into reality and back.

Amira Lev presents works born out of the anxieties and sleepless nights of a mother whose soldier son was mobilized for combat on October 7. She traces protective boundaries around the home, supposedly her safe place, while constantly watching its entrance path with concern. She marks hours of dozing and waking in an abstract visual language.

Dror Auslander refers to Israeli reality and military life, yet does not conform to the forceful masculine model. He presents a series of fragile works depicting human figures and aircraft on changing surfaces. Among the line and stain drawings that fade into their surfaces is a body of work born after the Second Lebanon War, during which he and his family were forced to leave their homes in the north because of missile fire. A dim memory that resurfaces as a reflection of contemporary life.

Noga Yudkovik-Etzioni examines the sense of belonging to a family, a place, a country and the values each represents, placing a "table of belonging" at the center of the space. She wraps and defines it with strips of fabric and rubber in black, blue and white. A surface stretched toward the floor under the weights of personal and local histories.

Danielle Feldhaker presents a snapshot of a nation whose symbol of national pride is present-absent. From the wall of the narrow room emerges a clenched hand holding a bamboo stick. An empty pole on which an Israeli flag flew during the protests against the judicial-regime overhaul. An empty pole as a sign of helplessness in these days.

Marin Cohen presents a record of moments of comfort from a laundry project for evacuees in which she took part during the difficult days after October 7. Between washing, folding and crying over the situation, she photographed the contents of the clean laundry bags just before they returned to their owners, wondering who the family members were, how many children they had and how they were doing. Clothing belonging to people deprived of this basic daily act, an intimate connection with the clothes of strangers she will never meet, and a freezing of moments of feeling privileged to help them.

The need to act and help in response to the massacre and war also guided Sarit Kropka Weingarten's work. Green Screen is a photographic journey in collaboration with Hani Fuchs, involving survivors and companions from the Nova festival, and residents evacuated from their homes and staying in hotels across the country. Participants were invited to be photographed against a green screen, a technique in which an action is filmed against a green background that can be replaced with another. Using AI tools, each participant created a new background for their image, a new "reality" of their choosing. The photographs in the exhibition show the participants within the imaginary space in which they wished to appear. An anchoring moment capable of offering a little strength and hope, and a connection between therapeutic and artistic approaches as a means of responding to and reflecting life in Israel after October 7, 2023. During the exhibition, Kropka operates the green screen within the display space, allowing visitors to experience the process and invite moments of heartening dialogue for themselves.

Merav Rahat presents White Lily, an exhibition born from a visual war diary she created after October 7, where words ran out. A labor-intensive process of taking apart and assembling images and texts from the daily newspaper and television screenshots into dozens of woven collages. Carefully selecting from the abundance of information circulating in the media, Rahat turns printed content into a means of personal expression across days that seem like one long day. In the exhibition space in Kfar Yehoshua, she continues this process through extreme enlargements of parts of pages from the diary, bringing out their material origin in a way that emphasizes the cuts and the moiré effect of newspaper printing. The act of leafing through the diary is presented as a silent conversation on a screen. A "white lily," dried on a newspaper, from a series of flowers of annunciation born during the war, stands as a symbol of hope on the peeling wall.

Thus, bodies of work by different artists meet among the intimate spaces. Viewpoints formed between the room openings link and connect works placed at different ends, with the question "What has changed?" echoing between them, and beyond that, "What can be changed?" Past and present, universal and local, mingle in the views made possible by the nature of the exhibition space.

Ma Nishtana? | A Cluster of Art Exhibitions

Spaces of Time - Said Abu Shakra, Dror Auslander, Noga Yudkovik-Etzioni, Guy Levy, Sima Meir

Spaces of Action - Marin Cohen, Amira Lev, Danielle Feldhaker, Sarit Kropka Weingarten

White Lily - Merav Rahat

Curators: Neta Haber, Merav Rahat

The alternative space of Beit Hankin Art Gallery, Kfar Yehoshua

Opening hours: Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 10:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.

Source: Merav Rahat's blog (exhibition curator), July 4, 2024, linked as the exhibition catalog from the Beit Hankin website:

https://meravrahat.wordpress.com/2024/07/04/מה-נשתנה-מקבץ-תערוכות/