Adva Drori – "Dizengoff 147” Documentation of an installation at Rosenfeld Gallery, 2001 Photography and editing: Eliasaf Kovner "In this video work, Adva Drori’s distinctive personal style began to take shape—one that has few parallels in the local art scene. The uniqueness of the work is evident in both its style and its complex themes. A one-woman ritual, where she prepares and fries doll parts, eggs, milk, candy, and more… It’s a strange and dark ritual, blending reality with fantasy, evoking a sense of universal and local truths that touch on the cycles of birth, life, and death. Through the imagery of femininity—both in her own appearance and in the doll parts and clothing—and the constant act of frying, preparation, and cooking, a dense atmosphere is created, an emotional experience, almost magical." (Text by Dafna Naor) Adva Drori – A Celebration of Birth Solo exhibition, first time at Rosenfeld Gallery Performance and photography Drori’s performance feels like a disturbingly domestic-family celebration. Dolls and doll parts, chocolates, candies, and basic food items are fried together in pans. The sounds, smells, and music form the aesthetic range and rhythm, shaping the narrative structure. But this celebration also has foul smells and toxic gas. More than a beautified spectacle, the performance is a moral adventure where beauty has turned deviant, strange, and manipulative. In their original state, the dolls are objects of various desires.They lack sexual identity, are submissive, and serve as markers of myths and ideologies of the dominant culture. In Drori’s work, these markers become deconstructed, expressing a blurring of materials. By displacing these cultural icons from their esteemed status, her work generates connections that have yet to fully reveal themselves. The mixing of visual and meaningful languages creates internal contradictions, serving as a means to convey the certainty of an absence in the narrative. The fantasy-like nature seems to connect more with the darker side of family and societal values. The absent is represented by a plastic, designed substitute that is decayed—like a mirage from an unresolved autobiographical memory. Unlike the performance itself, the photographs are taken from a previous, similar performance, freezing the "aftermath"—the theatricality is suspended, and the smells disappear. The photographs close the gap between what was observed and the new representation of the images. They allow entry into a narrative that solidifies a process of neglect. The difference lies in the meaning of the image, not the appearance of the object born from it. Drori reflects on her home-based playground as part of the celebration. Her figure is adorned, treating her body like an object—a doll. Like her dolls, she portrays humans as commodities, desperately trying to please and meet the accumulating demands of survival. In both the performance and the photographs, Adva Drori explores the states of being and the processes between good intentions and the cost of their realization." Diana Dallal, Rosenfeld Gallery, March 2001