vered nissim

tel aviv

In her artis­tic work, Vered Nis­sim exam­ines ques­tions of iden­ti­ty, social sta­tus, and gen­der in the envi­ron­ment of her home, fam­i­ly, and pri­vate life. She uses media, pho­tog­ra­phy, sculp­ture, instal­la­tion, video, and video performances.

“As a female artist, I am always fas­ci­nat­ed by the way the home has been mar­gin­al­ized to a great extent in art his­to­ry as a place of inti­ma­cy, a loca­tion usu­al­ly asso­ci­at­ed with the fem­i­nine. Through­out his­to­ry, the domes­tic set­ting has been both a safe­guard and a prison for so many women. My gaze has always been direct­ed inwards. My way of explor­ing, engag­ing, and crit­i­ciz­ing the world and cul­tur­al norms has been through this inward gaze. My house, my fam­i­ly, and I are piv­otal points in all my work.”

Vered Nis­sim presents two videos that were cre­at­ed in the per­son­al envi­ron­ment of her home and fam­i­ly. In traditional/ultraorthodox Jew­ish belief, women are for­bid­den to sing in pub­lic. It is con­sid­ered sex­u­al­ly allur­ing and an exhi­bi­tion­ist act. In the first video, Sara Sings, the artist‘s moth­er inter­prets the pop­u­lar Israeli (orig­i­nal­ly Ara­bic) pop song Do you love me. In the sec­ond video, the moth­er tries to dri­ve out the evil eye from her daugh­ter with a rit­u­al sim­i­lar to Ger­man “lead pour­ing”. Both of these videos and their mean­ings revolve around (oral) his­to­ry, rit­u­als, and tra­di­tions in the home envi­ron­ment and aim to give mar­gin­al­ized women in Israeli soci­ety a voice.

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Foto: Vered Nissim

web residency

Sarah Sings

artist talks