Magasin III Jaffa
34 Olei Zion
6813131 Tel Aviv-Yafo
Ph +972 3-9499900
Opening Hours
Thursday 2pm – 8pm
Friday 10am – 2pm
Looking Back at the Future
20.6.2024 – 8.11.2024
The events of October 7th and the terrible war that broke out in their aftermath threw us into abysses of fear and despair, undermining any attempt to think about a better future or a future at all. We struggle to imagine a future that is not painted in the colors of war—internal as well as external; the disaster, which is still changing the face of the country and its people, interferes with our ability to entertain any vision of a common society based on freedom and equality.
In a country founded on a utopian vision and built in a continuous present of wars, occupation, and terrorism, it has never been easy to imagine a future that does not involve all of these. But the current crisis has introduced an urgent and vital need to imagine a different future, so that it would not be the ongoing disaster that determines our view of the future.
The group exhibition Looking Back at the Future turns to “former futures” created here in the last decade, in an attempt to reconstruct the ability to imagine a future, based on the rationale that if we cannot imagine the future, we will not be able to realize it. The four projects in the exhibition were created years ago, but they present a future that is still far from being realized, now perhaps even more so than when they were created. Albeit far from realization, they provide space for the imagination, not out of a need to wallow in the past, but in order to expand the horizon, and thereby open a door to any imaginary future and not only the ones described in them.1
Hamody Gannam: Unmarked ID
Hamody Gannam wonders what a future will look like in which people will no longer be identified by ethnic, religious, or class origin; a future in which an individual will not be ascribed attributes, political opinions, and collective anxieties based on his/her group affiliations. The project Unmarked ID is a photographic visual study that proposes an ID based on a personal bacterial profile. By using microscopic photography of petri dishes, Gannam assembles IDs which disallow framing a person according to prejudice, replacing the familiar group affiliations with information that is, ostensibly, much more intrusive, but at the same time—free of the stigmas that dominate our perception of the other.
Thalia Hoffman: Guava
In 2014, when Thalia Hoffman searched on Google Maps for the historic road connecting Jaffa and Beirut, a route that ran along the coast, she received the message: “Sorry, we could not calculate walking directions.” The blocking of the road on the map led her to imagine a future local space without borders, where people and information could move freely. In the film Hoffman created, Guava, the year is 2048. Two refugees, a Jewish woman and a Muslim man, walk together to Beirut, while talking about trust, love, memory and oblivion: she tries to remember what happened there to keep walking, while he tries to convince her to forget, so that they may arrive at their destination.
Hoffman does not offer a solution. The future she creates is not utopian. The borders are indeed open, and the language combines Hebrew and Arabic, but the protagonists are refugees who have lost everything and are trying to reach a safe haven. Hoffman uses this dystopian vision to explore the possibilities it contains and thereby imagine a space that strives for justice and equality, without the barriers and borders that exist in the present.
Mushon Zer-Aviv & Shalev Moran: Speculative Tourism
Speculative Tourism is a long-term literary-design-political project, as part of which guided tours are conducted on the streets of various cities. Instead of revisiting past events and occurrences, however, the tours describe future perspectives, which seek to probe its scope of possibilities rather than predicting the future. The tours are delivered through audio recordings, which can be heard on one’s mobile phone while walking in the public space, and which were created by artists who are local residents.2 In some cases, the style of the tours mimics ordinary tourist apps, while in others it simulates public situations, such as protest marches, press tours, presentations to investors, etc. The tours are conceived in a process that begins with a speculative writing workshop, developed by Mushon Zer-Aviv and Shalev Moran, which spans several writing exercises, scenario planning, and imagination. In the current exhibition, Zer-Aviv and Moran present a video installation, referring to the first series of tours created in 2017, which takes place in Jerusalem. During the exhibition, they plan additional joint tours in Jerusalem.
“Speculative Tourism,” Zer-Aviv and Moran write, aims “to serve as an antidote to a political culture that is chronically dependent on the past, on both sides of the political barrier: the conservative right seeks tradition, and the liberal center-left seeks data-based predictions, but both tradition and data come from the past and can only reproduce it. The result is self-fulfilling prophecies, jeopardizing the ability to influence our future in the present. Speculative tourism proposes to expand our view of the future and replace the dominant paradigm of prediction (extrapolation from existing data) with a paradigm of expectation (initially open speculation about different futures, and only then the identification of trends, which may foreshadow them in the present), as a way to restore a degree of agency and the possibility of imagining more diverse futures.”3
Omer Krieger & Hillel Roman: Voice of the Next State
Following the disappearance of the concept of “peace” from the public discourse, and in a desire to stimulate the eroded public political imagination and to realize the power of art and its institutions in the struggle to shape the future society between the Jordan and the sea, Omer Krieger and Hillel Roman decided to establish the broadcasting station Voice of the Next State. The station operated in 2016-17 in central city squares across Israel, and hosted speakers who presented their vision for the next state, with emphasis on coexistence for Jews and Arabs, regional peace, and the end of the occupation. The public was invited to make use of the open mic placed on site, and the entire event was broadcast live on social media. Voice of the Next State is an ongoing artistic act held in the public sphere, whose results are not known in advance. As such, it allows the “training” of the imagination, initiates discourse, and re-examines art’s use value in the political field.4
In the current exhibition, Krieger and Roman present a video piece documenting the previous stations in which the broadcasts took place, alongside an illuminated LED sign, facing the street and seeking to spread a message of hope for a beautiful future. During the exhibition, additional acts of Voice of the Next State are planned.
Karmit Galili
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1 On the ability of the political imagination to introduce change, see: Norma Musih, “Political Imagination,” Mafte’akh: Lexical Review of Political Thought, 18 (Spring 2023), pp. 47–63 [Hebrew].
2 Emily Amrousi, Yael Bartana, Muhammad Beiruti, Sara Benninga, Sarah Blau, Racheli Ibenboim, Hagit Keysar, Boaz Lavie, Meron Rapoport.
3 Mushon Zer Aviv and Shalev Moran, “Speculative Tourism,” Mafte’akh: Lexical Review of Political Thought, 18 (Spring 2023), p. 146 [Hebrew].
4 See Musih, “Political Imagination,” p. 54.
Artists
Hamody Gannam
Hamody Gannam is a mixed-media artist viewing photography and graphic design as vehicles for capturing voices, from which he developed a unique language of ethnographic photography. Gannam’s projects delve into societal and national identities, addressing pressing issues within conflicted environments. His work creates a rich tapestry where digital realms intersect with historical narratives. Proficient in diverse digital media and deeply attuned to the exotic histories of each story he uncovers, Gannam strives to bridge disparate worlds in every image he creates.
Gannam studied geographical photography at the Glitz School of Photography and acquired an MFA from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. His work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions locally and internationally, including Haifa Museum of Art; Petah-Tikva Museum of Art; Ramat Gan Museum; Beit HaGefen Gallery, Haifa and Haifa City Museum.
Thalia Hoffman
Thalia Hoffman is a visual artist and researcher working in film, video, performance, and public interventions in the area where she lives, east of the Mediterranean. Alongside her artistic actions, Hoffman holds a PhD in artistic research from Leiden University and is a lecturer at the University of Haifa in video, performance, and artistic research. Her work strives to be involved in its surroundings and engages people to look, listen and feel their socio-political landscape with attention.
Hoffman’s work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions and festivals in Israel and abroad, including Tel Aviv Museum of art; Haifa Museum of art; Mamuta Art & Research Center, Jerusalem; Beit HaGefen Gallery, Haifa; Jerusalem Film Festival; Experiments in Cinema Festival, New Mexico; Aesthetica Short Film Festival, England and Cairo Video Festival.
Mushon Zer-Aviv
Mushon Zer-Aviv is a designer, writer, educator, and activist based in Tel Aviv. His work often involves mapping and way-finding through physical, digital, and political landscapes. These are also the themes he explores in his current research titled Friction and Flow – a design theory of change. Mushon is a board member of the Israeli/Palestinian movement A Land for All – Two States One Homeland. He is a senior faculty member at Shenkar College and an alumni of Eyebeam, an art and technology center in New York.
Shalev Moran
Shalev Moran is a game designer and media artist based in Copenhagen. He holds a BA degree from Tel Aviv University’s Honors Program in the Humanities and Arts, and an MA degree from the Game Design program at the Royal Danish Academy. Moran was a curator for Print Screen Festival (2013 – 2019), and in 2021 joined the team of the Game Arts International Assembly.
Omer Krieger
Omer Krieger makes performative actions, political situations, and civic choreographies in public spaces. He studies the public experience and the performance of the state, and is interested in the relations between art, citizenship, politics, and action.
Krieger was the founding artistic director of the 1:1 Center for Art and Politics in Tel Aviv-Jaffa (2018-2020). Artistic director of Under the Mountain: Festival of New Public Art in Jerusalem (2011-2015), and Co-founder and leader of the performative research body Public Movement (2006-2011).
Hillel Roman
Hillel Roman is a visual artist and a lecturer at Beit Berl College. In his works Roman deals with various aspects of the political, visual, and technological order and their interconnectedness. His practice focuses on, but is not limited to, charcoal drawings and large-scale participatory constructions.
Roman holds a BA in comparative literature from Tel Aviv University, and an MFA from Goldsmiths, University of London. His works are in major Israeli collections such as the Israel Museum, Tel Aviv Museum, Petach Tikva Museum and Haaretz Art Collection. He is the recipient of various prizes and scholarships including, Artport Residency, Asylum Arts grant, Rabinowitz Foundation and more. Roman’s work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions locally, including the Tel Aviv Museum of art; Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art; Haifa Museum of art; Petach-Tikva Museum of Art; Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv and Sommer Gallery, Tel Aviv.
About Magasin III Museum for Contemporary Art
The museum is one of Europe’s leading institutions for contemporary art. Magasin III believes in the ability of art to challenge and inspire people and society. Since 1987, Magasin III has presented world-class exhibitions and continues to fortify its collection, which holds works by leading artists. Recent highlight exhibitions in Stockholm include Tom Friedman, Katarina Grosse, Tony Oursler, Mika Rottenberg, Ai Weiwei, Andrea Zittel and Gunnel Wåhlstrand.
About Magasin III Jaffa
Magasin III Jaffa is an exhibition space, a permanent satellite established by Magasin III Museum for Contemporary Art from Stockholm, Sweden. Magasin III Jaffa’s diverse program features both local and international contemporary artists. Since opening at 2018, Magasin III Jaffa has presented solo exhibitions by Haim Steinbach, Shiela Hicks, Cosima von Bonin, Tal R, Maya Attoun, Polly Apfelbaum, David Adika and a group exhibition presenting Absalon, Gaston Zvi Ickowicz, Saher Miari and Shahar Yahalom. The space is located on 34 Olei Zion, in a residential neighborhood rich with history and cultural diversity, that borders with Jaffa’s famous flea market. Magasin III Jaffa’s unique architecture enables passersby to view the exhibitions from the outside, day and night.
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