Gallery: Us and Them
Four Palestinians and four Jews, men and women artists working in various media, asked the question: What separates us from them? How does this thinking lead to racism and violence? What is the nature of the divide and how can we look beneath those borders to find the things that unite us?
The eight artists who are participating in an exhibit in the Oasis Art Gallery, curated by Dyana Shaloufi Rizek, are Adi Hoffman, Aiman Halabi, Bila Berg, Dahoud Haiek, Hiam Mustafa, Oren Martan, Sara Benninga and Ruba Hamdan.
Six of the eight artists were able to make the exhibit opening, which was held on June 16.
Said Ruba Hamdan: “The opening event was a special, unique experience. The fact that these are Arab and Jewish artists is also special. On the one hand, when you look at it as a whole, it doesn’t matter where the artists come from. The artistic language is the same language, the selection of the works creates a sequence and a common language, the experiences are similar and most of them even universal experiences. The exhibition is as if ‘without’ a national identity.
“On the other hand, it is impossible to completely ignore the power and importance of the gathering of Jewish and Arab artists.”
Oren Martan said: “The conversation that developed between Dyana the curator, some of the artists and the visitors, was a conversation that took place in a mixture of Arabic, Hebrew and a little English – was a conversation with a special musicality due to the mixture.”
Dyana Shaloufi Rizek, the Gallery curator wrote of the exhibit that it draw a path that begins with feelings and thoughts, and which leads to actions that will have a positive impact on our society. “The subject/name of the exhibition makes us stand before life and political questions and explorations… Art has a special language with dimensions in its meaning,” she wrote.