Artwork: by Addam Yekutieli, Separate Reality/Shared Reality, Jerusalem, 2020 (photo: @kid_aroke)
Isreali artist Adam Yekutieli (aka @thisislimbo; Know Hope; www.thisislimbo.com/signsofhope), has created a series of “textual collage” paste-ups situated around Jerusalem addressing the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s a snapshot of people’s responses to the crisis that hopefully allows viewers to connect with each other despite the isolating and potentially devastating experience. This resonates as in Melbourne we’re at the tail-end of a Level-4 lockdown. Thankfully the number of transmissions, infections and deaths in Victoria, and within Australia, have been far lower than many countries world-wide. Here’s the text featured on the two paste-ups pictured here:
Artwork: by Addam Yekutieli, Separate Reality/Shared Reality, Jerusalem, 2020 (photo: @kid_aroke)
“They weren’t able to see my difficulty with this (21).
I was disappointed to see how many people don’t understand that we’re all (14) meaningful (38).
At first there was hope (28), but in order to allow everyone (36) to fill the space that loneliness took (28), I made sure to lower expectations (34).
I’ve been trying to let go (20) the fact that I still hold a grudge against them for that (21).
It seems that the success of this (16) is the ability to be an anchor for others (23).”
“Those who make the decisions still think that they have control (34).
The transition wasn’t easy (29), but the boundaries (28) and worry were replaced with hope (28).
After all, hope (23) is a furious, large and shared prayer (23).
We will remember this year (5).”
And here’s Yekutieli’s explanation of the project:
“The happening of Covid-19 is immensely collective, but our experiences are immaculately personal.
I recently collected testimonials written by Jerusalem residents regarding the first quarantine period, requesting them to share their experiences, reflections and lessons learned from these times.
I later created a ‘textual collage’ by extracting fragments of sentences from their texts and rearranging and connecting them to fragments from other participant’s words, to create new stories.
These stories, composed of individual and personal descriptions of experiences, now depict a ‘collective experience’, creating newfound notions and highlighting similarities and broader issues.
Posters with these texts were installed around Jerusalem’s city center for people to recognise slivers of their experience, see it in a new light and understand their part in the larger, shared reality.
This project, titled 'Separate Reality/Shared Reality' was produced in collaboration with and as part of the @israel.festival.
Thank you to all the participants who shared their stories, to @vainernimrod, @kid_aroke and @lebonsworld for the working hands and to the Israel Festival for the opportunity.”