Binding Fire, video art, 2017-2021.
Binding Fire
The work consists of private archive negative photoshoots, 2017-2021, from ceremonies of bonfires lighting of Lag BaOmer- a Kabbalistic tradition day marks in a celebration of death’s anniversary of Rabbi Simeon bar Yochai, the author of the Zohar, the most important Kabbalistic book.
The work was completed after the “Meron crowd crush tragedy”- the deadliest civil disaster in the history of Israel which occurred on the night of Lag B'Omer, 30.4.21 and in which, due to crushing and suffocation caused by crowds, 45 men and children were killed, and 145 people were injured.
In the background, a chatter of running water and a Morse sound that makes up the lyrics of the Kabbalistic piyut “Bar Yochai” , as a sign of disaster heralding the arrival of the binding cold-foreign fire.