A Place of Serenity
Curator - Nurit Yarden
The photographs offer a surrealistic view of the shore of the Sea of Galilee. A washing machine engine, mattresses, sofas, tables, chairs, and various odd household items seem to have been abandoned on the beach. Their presence, detached from the beautiful landscape of the Sea of Galilee, seems almost staged. But this is not a virtual or augmented reality, it is an all-too-real distressing phenomenon. People leave behind remains of household items which they once used and then abandoned as tombs to mark chunks of their lives now discarded. The various objects, furniture and scraps abandoned on the shore, contrasted with the postcard-like landscape of the Sea of Galilee, lends power to these photographs.
The environmental pollution, the process of its formation, and the changes that occur as time goes by, have been documented by Merav Stark for several years. Her point of view comes from the experience of an observer or traveler seeking a clean and pristine site to relax and is hard-pressed to find one. Each photograph reveals the unbearable ease with which nature is defiled with no one to bring it to a halt. The beach in the photographs is not just the physical landscape of the country’s key water source, nor only a beloved and popular public holiday haven. It is a symbol that reflects Israeli society, proving once and again, disregard for the public sphere and indifference to other people.