
Homeward Bound
B.Y5 GALLERY TEL-AVIV | JAN-FEB 2021
Memories of moments past, the way in which recollections are framed with the passing of time, and the essence of memory, all converge within Gal Yaari’s work in the exhibit “Homeward Bound”. Using light - a “non material” - Yaari sketches a series of dynamic images that deal both with the processing of memory, as with it’s loss. Within the installation in the gallery space, she deconstructs and reconstructs past moments through a contemporary viewpoint, flooding memories of childhood and adolescent experiences that glimmer through the dark. These images rise, expose themselves to the viewer, flicker and fade, only to reappear again.
The installation revolves around representations of three different houses in which Yaari grew up - in Jerusalem, Washington and London. In these images, Yaari uses light to portray abstract representations of objects from within the houses. These homely spaces in the different cities serve as foundations for Yaari’s identity as a person, and the pieces of furniture depicted inside allude to moments that were experienced therein. By connecting elements from different eras to visible scenes of light, she manifests trails of memory, pondering both its presence and it’s loss in the creation of meaning, identity and consciousness.
In another scene, Yaari carves sketching lines into an exposed material, depicting a later memory of a visit to the Israel Museum, the fourth “home” in which she grew up. The scene details an image of a young girl sitting in the corner of the museum hall, under Marcel Duchamp’s piece Rotoreliefs (Optical Disks), 1935. This image invokes a memory of Yaari herself as an adolescent, encountering Duchamp’s work and philosophy, which ultimately led her to pursue the field of art. Through this portrayal of both the adult and adolescent Yaari, together with a symbolic representation of Duchamp’s seminal piece, she gazes into and onto herself, observing the unfolding journey of her own life.
One of the elements that arises in the composition of light is a cell phone, held and pointed towards the occurrence inside the installation. By simulating an act of photography, she freezes the moment in an image. Without this image, the experience might flicker and fade from memory. Yet the presence of the phone reminds the viewer of the role technology may assume as an extension of the human body, as well as its memories.
"Homeward Bound” is an autobiographical installation. A sensorial memory of place, people and contexts carved into the body, coded and stored until they reemerge in a renewed form. By combining machine made drawings with hand sketches, traditional form printings with technological tools and computer code, Yaari creates a multilayered tale, deeply personal yet concurrently Universal. This tale is a dialogue between past, present and future, woven with compositions of light, constantly changing over space and time.