the houses

Petach Tikva Museum of Art

2008

chief curator and director Drorit Gur Arie

curator | anat gatenio

Hebron / Create a House, Create a Family​

Curator: Anat Gatenio

The animation short ‘Hebron: Create a House, Create a Family relates to a family of computer games in which the player is given the possibility to create his or her family alongside virtual life actions. The computer animation esthetics and vocabulary plays the role of a distancing device and alienates from the sensitive testimonial materials. The animation spells out an incident of a murder, based on a historic incident within the Hasson family in 1929 in Hebron in which the father of the artist’s grandfather, Rabbi Hannoch Hasson and his wife Clara were involved. The artist’s grandmother and aunt survived this incident with the help of an Arab friend that hid them on the roof of their house. The character and costume design tend to dismantle stereotypical patterns of thought. The costumes (as they were in that era): a galabiya (traditional cloak), a suit, tarboosh’ pess (hat), arouse questions regarding the depiction of the Arab as the “Other”, as opposed to the Jew. The interactive qualities of the autobiographic animation allows parallel narratives; a midnight wedding is one alternative option to the murder incident. Virtual options shed light on the limitations one meets when attempting to tell a constant, singular historic incident, committed to one, and only one truth. In this fashion, the rioters from the murder incident become the guests of the midnight wedding. The fragmented narritive arouses questions dealing with the writing of history and how it is driven by political power structures. ‘Hebron- Create a House, Create a Family’ reflects on human and political complexity (personal memory servicing national and political needs by the new settlers in Hebron) whilst touching on subjects such as: trauma, nostalgia and memory through a humor and an ironic approach.