Mezalzem
The exhibition “Mezalzem”flourishes in the space between nature and city, between organism and machine, and between our desire to feel safe and our reality of being under constant watch. It seems as a green sanctuary – a rich, alluring urban nature reserve – yet beneath the appearance of wild growth lies a cleverly planned system of observation and control.
In the museum’s entrance space, a dense thicket of artificial vegetation unfolds, crafted from layers of painted, pasted, and biodegradable paper. Hidden within the installation, among the leaves, are the Mezalzemim – a hybrid species born from the convergence of plant and security camera. Its name, a Hebrew portmanteau (mezalem: taking a photo, and zemach: plant) structured as a palindrome, suggests a back-and-forth movement and hints at the reversed gaze within this environment: the plant, traditionally an object of human observation, appears to watch us back. While most of the cameras are inactive and only one tracks visitors’ movements, it is impossible to know which one. Thus, the presence of the gaze itself permeates the space.
In this site-specific installation, the artists of the SHEVA group – Anat Greenberg, Aya Sarig, Lili Fisher, Rosa Ben Arie, and Dalia Hay Acco – direct our attention to the complex, evolving relationship between humanity and nature in the digital age. The hybrid creature they have created echoes Donna Haraway’s cyborg and the blurring boundaries between the natural and the technological. At the same time, the work observes contemporary urban life – a space offering comfort, protection, and belonging on one hand, while networked with systems that collect, watch, and record on the other.
Does the knowledge that technological systems routinely record our movements grant us a sense of security, or does it feel like a threat? When does protection turn into surveillance, and comfort into a surrender of privacy? Or perhaps we have grown so accustomed to the gaze that we no longer notice it at all.
Avital Katz
Curator of the Exhibition
