Taliya Finkel Productions - Projects

Projects

Great Grandmother Grandfather installation
A video and photography installation.

As a typical secular Israeli girl, there was something mythical in my grandparents' religious way of life. The rituals seemed magical to me on one hand yet far removed from me on the other. I could not understand how they were able to believe in goodness, when from my point of view their lives were unbearable, with both the past and its traumas of World War II, hunger and death and their old age and faltering body of today.

I began filming and photographing in order to come closer, to feel and to understand. The photographs and film present this journey, a journey in search of identity, a confrontation of memory, faith and old age. From two main viewpoints - mine rather skeptical, and theirs full of faith and a kind of naivety.

The photographs: 50 black and white still photographs. The photographs document the daily existence of my grandparents, who lead a Jewish Orthodox way of life. The installation shod be exhibited in 3 separate spaces that resembles Reuven & Batia's Home in Pardes Katz, Benei Brak. The installation is somewhere between a relic to a souvenirs – the only remain of the passing times.

These photographs served as the basis of the film.

(Click to view images)