Human Shield
Project Type: Mixed Media \ Photography
Time: 2023-24
The events of 7 October led the artist Adi van Velsen to question issues related to existence in space. As the daughter and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, Adi found herself questioning the state in which civilian populations search for a place to call home while serving as human shields for abstract ideas. The regional chaos undermined her and her family’s sense of security, leading her to an inquiry that began with personal and national crisis.
The body of works presented in the apartment rooms is van Velsen’s attempt to locate the ability of the home (concrete and conceptual) to exist in a state of ruin while standing as a human shield and marker of territory and border.
Topographic Maps, 2023
Mixed technique, digital print on cotton paper
Van Velsen employed a digital technique to randomly erase areas from photographs depicting the damage in the western Negev communities. This process resulted in the near-complete removal of the original images, creating a mapped territory. The abstracted images provide potential continuity and retain some indications from the source. The decision to print the collage on thin cotton paper, originally used to separate photographs in the artist’s old family albums, reflects the effects of time and alludes to memories entrenched in the album, contrasting with the longing for a new future depicted in the printed image.
Human Shield
Project Type: Mixed Media \ Photography
Time: 2023-24
The events of 7 October led the artist Adi van Velsen to question issues related to existence in space. As the daughter and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, Adi found herself questioning the state in which civilian populations search for a place to call home while serving as human shields for abstract ideas. The regional chaos undermined her and her family’s sense of security, leading her to an inquiry that began with personal and national crisis.
The body of works presented in the apartment rooms is van Velsen’s attempt to locate the ability of the home (concrete and conceptual) to exist in a state of ruin while standing as a human shield and marker of territory and border.
Human Shield
Project Type: Mixed Media \ Photography
Time: 2023-24
The events of 7 October led the artist Adi van Velsen to question issues related to existence in space. As the daughter and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, Adi found herself questioning the state in which civilian populations search for a place to call home while serving as human shields for abstract ideas. The regional chaos undermined her and her family’s sense of security, leading her to an inquiry that began with personal and national crisis.
The body of works presented in the apartment rooms is van Velsen’s attempt to locate the ability of the home (concrete and conceptual) to exist in a state of ruin while standing as a human shield and marker of territory and border. Press photos of the damage wrought by war and processes of deconstruction and reconstruction serve van Velsen to undo the constraints and context of the form, and to map areas and formal anchors that she could later use as foundations for construction. Through a repetitive act, she reveals outlines, creates topographic charts, and forms house-shaped porcelain objects that she hangs on the wall, precariously suspended between heaven and earth, waiting to crash
