Thursday, April 16

Identity / A Dress and a Prayer

Five women from Jaffa whose children attend the Weitzman primary school met for a period of 6 months to talk and make art under the guidance of a professional artist, Ziv Peleg- Ben Ze'ev.
Today they opened their exhibition in Ziv's Tel Aviv studio, showing a series of "dresses" representing themselves, their dreams and their prayers.

During the opening a short documentary movie made in the framework of the project, was shown. Each woman, except for Palestinian Astar Saba, told about her experience in the movie.
Astar read out a short statement instead.
All of the participating women went through a significant personal process during the six months of weekly group art work. Except for one woman, Orna Marton, an architect, none were professional artists. They all come from very different backgrounds. But, being women living in Jaffa, parents from kids going to Weitzman, they had a lot to share and to talk about.

People from the art community, the school and from Jaffa in general attended the opening event.

The Weitzman School , a public primary school located in the center of Jaffa, is trying to implement a bi-national and multi-cultural curriculum, is in danger of being closed. I hope the municipality will have the brains to keep it going.

They work with the children AND with their parents. Each class has 2 teachers: a Palestinian and a Jewish teacher. Although the school belongs to the "Jewish public school track", many of its students are Palestinian kids from Jaffa.


The art project is supported by "Mémoire de l'avenir" and "One to One" as well as, ofcourse, the school.



1 comment:

Tamar Orvell said...

Always great hearing about wonderful projects. I hope the participants and planners go from strength to strength. Please keep up posted on their and other successes.