The works in the album represent different photographic practices: artistic, personal and some staged, the intense images are upsetting. As well they should be in confronting mass murder.<\/p>\n
Before walking around a corner to see Lali Fruhelig\u2019s gruesome 3-D installation suggesting a corpse sprawled on the floor of a living room, a sign cautions: \u201cThe exhibition contains some potentially disturbing contents. Viewer discretion is advised.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arieli, a history professor and a photographer who explores remembrance culture and cultural manifestations of trauma, began the Album Darom project shortly after the Gaza war broke out.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen something\u2019s traumatic, you have to work or do something,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Shocked by the murder of her friend Gideon Pauker from Kibbutz Nir Oz \u2013 who was killed just before his 80th birthday \u2013 she posted 100 daily historic and contemporary images of the Western Negev.<\/p>\n Initially, Arieli intended Album Darom to be exhibited at Kibbutz Yad Mordechai Museum just north of the Gaza Strip frontier. After the museum was damaged by rocket fire, this wasn\u2019t feasible. Instead, she selected Petach Tikvah as the venue. She explained that the site \u2013 the first Yad Labanim memorial to fallen Israel Defence Forces soldiers from the War of Independence \u2013 is meant to be relevant to all Israelis. The museum offers free admission on Saturday, so observant Jews may visit on Shabbat.<\/p>\n Speaking to a group of journalists, Arieli compared Oct. 7 to the Nov. 4, 1995, assassination of then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. \u201cEveryone is frozen in their memory of where they were,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Arieli and Gordon emphasized the intended cathartic nature of the exhibit. The two said the museum is a \u201csafe space\u201d and a \u201cplace for healing.\u201d After experiencing the horrors of Oct. 7, Gordon found solace in this project, she added. \u201cThis is part of how we are coping with it all,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Miki Kratsman is one of the photographers whose depiction of his Oct. 7 nightmare is in the exhibit. Terrorists took his aunt Ophelia hostage from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz. She was later released from Gaza in the November hostage exchange deal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Kratsman\u2019s photograph, \u201cIn Aunt Ophelia\u2019s Neighbourhood,\u201d captures a modest kibbutz home collapsing as it is immolated in a fireball.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThese are the kinds of things that need to be in a museum,\u201d Arieli said of the photograph. \u201cYou\u2019re looking at the destruction of Nir Oz.\u201d<\/p>\n While vividly showing the devastation of the kibbutz, the burning home photograph is an enigma, and creates dialogue, she added.<\/p>\n
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