Prótesis del Nuevo Exodo
100 photographs, 16"x 20", edition of 3, 2006
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Every year, to commemorate the Exodus, practicing Jews build a temporary structure outdoors called sukkah, which they inhabit during seven days. Chapters I and II of Sukkah, in the fourth volume of the Seder Mo'Ed, provide a detailed discussion of the rules of construction (form, dimensions and materials), and the laws for its ritual use. In areas of New York with a large Jewish population, this religious practice changes the landscape every autumn. I have been documenting the temporary and intermittent appearance of this ephemeral city since I moved to Brooklyn in 1999. As a city that remains dormant, latent in a text, I am interested in showing how this materialization takes place, depending on interpretation -Satmar, Lubavitch, Bobov, etc- and context. This photographic survey focuses on Hasid neighborhoods in Brooklyn and traces the dialog between the ephemeral city and the host city: adaptations and mutations in the architecture. The exhibition was organized according to neighborhood and architectural typologies, from Williamsburg to Midwood, Borough Park, Crown Heights, Ditmas Park, Flatbush. Building types/spaces hosting this ephemeral city include early XX century tenement housing with firescapes, 60's housing complexes, new constructions built since the 80's and 90's by Jewish developers (with sukkah-ready balconies), 3-family detached houses, single family houses, empty lots, public plazas, side yards, etc.
The work consists of more than 1000 photographs taken between 1999-2010, in medium format color negative film (6x7 cm). The printed edition consists of a selection of 100 photographs, that I manually printed (C-print) 16"x20", in an edition of 3, in 2006.
The exhibition Prótesis del Nuevo Exodo consists of 70 framed photographs (Edition 2/3) from this series.
Prótesis del Nuevo Exodo
Die Ecke - Arte Contemporáneo
Santiago, Chile
05.10.2007 - 06.08.2017
other shows:
Contaminaciones Contemporáneas
Museu de Arte Contemporánea da USP
Sao Paulo, Brasil.
10.21.2010 - 03.27.2011
This work is also part of the traveling exhibition
Post-it City: Occasional urbanities
organized by the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona in 2008, curated by Martí Peran, Filippo Poli, Giovanni La Varra and Federico Zanfi.
The work presented in this show consists of 20 C-prints (Edition 1/3), framed.
Two prints from this series (sub-titled Roce I and Roce II, edition 3/3) were part of the exhibition Pais de Poetas, at BRIC Rotunda Gallery in Brooklyn in 2007.
I am working on a book of this project thanks to the generous support of the New York State Council on the Arts. See a draft here.
