Gili Lavy (Jerusalem, 1987) works with large-scale projections and immersive video installations. Her practice is inspired by how socio-political conditions influence cultural identity and the territory in which they exist.
Photo portrait of Gili Lavy
Nicola Trezzi: I think we should start this interview with “Autumn Clouds”. Even though this work is over ten years old and was your graduation project at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem in 2013, it reveals many of the themes that are at the core of your practice. Can you tell me how this work came about and how you look at it after so many years?
Gili Lavy: “Autumn Clouds” is a project that is very dear to me. Besides being shot in my birthplace, Jerusalem, there was something so unique, intuitive and fresh in the way it was made, something very raw in the filmmaking process. At that time, the starting point was a reflection on narratives of collective displacement within conflict zones, which then also inspired the next work, “Absence”. I wanted to portray an exhaustive and interruptive journey of what seems like a group of orphans. “Autumn Clouds” represents the beginning of my deep interest in the condition of social groups in situations of constant movement and change. It explores migration as a psychological form and as a state of being, with characters united by a sense of disorientation that oppresses them in their daily existencea.
Gili Lavy, “La Mère Divine”, 2014, video still, courtesy of the artist
With “Mère Divine” these issues are further accentuated. Using the Ratisbonne monastery in Jerusalem as a set, the work is a reflection on the possibility of creating a place where nothing changes while everything around changes drastically. I feel that here the set, the place, plays a much more important role. More than a set, the monastery as a site is the protagonist of the work. Do you agree?
Yes, the location of this video work is really its beating heart. The work examines the monastery as a place that, before the creation of the State of Israel, was in constant flux. Built in 1874 in Palestine, it served as a military headquarters, then a vocational school, an orphanage and finally a place to pray. It seemed to me that this monastery was a capsule of reality in this complex area of the Middle East, through the changes and layers of history, presenting us with the possibility of existing in a reality of transition, in an existential condition of uncertainty. It reflects the dynamic history of the monastery in a land that has always been marked by radical changes in the political, social and territorial landscape, and more than ever in these devastating days of the ongoing war.
Gili Lavy, “Autumn Clouds”, 2018, photographic print signed on the verso, 38 x 61 cm, edition 3 of 13 plus 2 AP (GL-0001), Villa Lena Foundation Collection
This work also embodies the interesting relationship between video art and your connection to cinema and Land Art. Although it has a cinematic quality, the work could be considered the first where your interest in the land becomes visible. I was wondering if you could talk about how this aspect runs through your practicea.
The land has always been at the center of my work along with the identity and connection of both concepts. I often look at the land with respect as Mother Earth and in every film the land is the protagonist or the starting point, everything revolves around it. The land dictates the narrative in many of my films. “Mère Divine” and “Autumn Clouds” were the first stops on this journey, continued with “Acreage”, “Furlong” and, most recently, “Common Lakes”. “Acreage” is a multi-channel video installation that investigates the different meanings of the land labeled as “territory”. The work presents social environments built from collective stories in vast wild landscapes where humans are like the wind: they arrive, they pass by and they tell us a lot with their silence. They leave space for the earth, to tell us its stories, to let it be. “Furlong”, although a much less cinematic work, articulates the idea of “land” in a more scientific way. The work explores the act of measuring a piece of land, a strategic and mechanical operation that turns into a frenetic search for a pristine, perhaps imaginary, land. It is a journey through time and space in which we discover that historical and political changes have left their mark on the geological structure of the planeta.
Nicola Trezzi
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