Alicia Shahaf’s work composed of still photographs that follow in succession once upon another, using the unraveled ends of childhood memories to embroider delicate symbolic an poetic gestures: childhood games framed and photographed from a distance; a stain of ink spreading across a white sheet of paper; the artist’s forcefully imposed Hebrew name, “Aliza” is spelled out in children’s sign language with grown-up fingers
My attitude towards immigration, says Shahaf, “is far from conventional or ‘accepted’ attitudes. I do not feel victimized or angry, not am I filled with deep, passionate Zionist ideals. Rather, I am interested in simply observing the girl I once was, who has become a woman who still knows how to play – in two languages
Leah Abir and Orit Bulgaru
Displacements, December 2007
