YAEL BARTANA ::::

A Declaration is a poetic short film in which a man sails out in a boat with the old Jaffa port (Tel Aviv) in the background and which culminates in a personal declaration and an exchange of symbols: the replacement of the symbol of the nation-state Israel with a symbol of peace, the olive tree. The film presents a utopian message about the coexistence of peoples beyond the border lines of nation-states and conflicts of religion. The man alone on the boat represents the clandestine action of an individual.

Yael Bartana, born and raised in Israel, divides her time between the Netherlands and Israel. Her work centers on the relationship between collective experiences and the relational behavior linked to ethnic, social, and gender questions, as well as to the formation of a cultural and national identity. Many of her works have their origins in video recordings of public or semipublic occasions: festivals, events, or ceremonies in Israel or other countries. Invariably, the rituals from whose recordings her works start out undergo a sort of dilation: the images unfold slowly and are linked together, situations are altered, turning into alienating performances.