Bodies of Work10 Feb 2023 – 3 March 2023
“Bodies of Work” is the new exhibition by Israeli artists Maya Gelfman & Roie Avidan. Since 2009, the duo has been working together in public spaces under the name, Mind the Heart! Project.
In the past decade, the project has reached more than 100 cities across 5 continents: from New York to Bangkok, Sydney to London, from the Israel Museum and the National Cathedral in D.C. to orphanages in Kenya and Uganda.
With kind support of
“Bodies of Work, the series of 14 photographs that is exhibited at ONKAF, was born out of the tantalizing feeling one gets when all is possible, everything is exposed, and nothing is certain. On the road, our artistic process has become very fluid and reactionary, almost like breathing: in and out, input-output.
We made ourselves into blank canvases or litmus paper, absorbing the rapidly changing reality and reacting to it in real time. The daily movements – walking, sleeping, taking a shower, eating – became completely entwined in the making of art.
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, it found us doing preliminary work for a project in India. The level intensity was raised even more. Without a home-base to quarantine in, without the safety-net of a nearby family or income, the notion of “embracing uncertainty” took on an even deeper meaning. Some of the works that were created in lockdowns are cruder and rawer, reflecting our – and humanity’s – feelings at this time.
ExhibitionOpening Pictures
The video work exhibited at ONKAF, “The Unimaginable Horizon”, was created in Poland in 2022. This work is a documentation of a meditative performance that took place in a long-abandoned manor near Krakow, in a cellar where Jews and refugees were hidden during WWII. Maya’s body became a vessel to transfer the remaining energy that was left behind, over the threshold and into the hallway – a crossroads of a possible new future or at least a pathway to change and release.“