Energy does not disappear or dissipate; it only changes form. In fact, since the Big Bang, the mass of the universe has been constant, only changing its shape and state of aggregation. Ella Littwitz revisits the ancient space around the Dead Sea and Mount Sodom, an area where the winds of Creation prevail. She explores the substances she finds there as being in the midst of change, a transformation in which the artistic act can take part. Littwitz’s sculptures are not inanimate objects; they are masses of matter undergoing constant metamorphosis, and even as you read these lines, the exhibition slowly changes its form: salt water drips, a patina forms, magnesium oxidizes. Much like the human body, the Dead Sea and the entire universe, art, too, is in an eternal process of becoming, evolving into something else.
In her works, Hadar Saifan functions as a soldier: she spots aircraft, clears routes, patrols evacuated settlements, and shoots with her camera. The invasion of Israel in October 2023 reinforced the role of civilians in protecting their homes—people who felt they had been abandoned by the state and chose to fill the vacuum left by the official institutions themselves.
The central video piece in the exhibition, High Alert, consists of photographs taken between January 2021 and May 2023 around Saifan’s house on the confrontation line near Israel’s northern border. She is in a constant state of alertness as a spotter, lying in wait for aircraft flying in the skies of the Galilee, following them and trying to capture the objects flying quickly by her house on camera. The IDF’s training area borders the fence of the civilian settlement, and the military presence reaches the threshold of her home, disrupting the peace, calling attention to the evil lurking in the north. The clear sky fills with aircraft at an increasing rate, the noise of engines pierces the silence, and clouds of dust billow over the calm landscape of the country’s north. The Western Galilee is depicted in Saifan’s work as a desolate place, where active military activity bustles against magnificent landscapes.
