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Sewn Daughters
Curator: Dr. Tali Tamir, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion, Tel Aviv Museum, 2005
The faint memory of sliding down a hill of cotton grains became the starting point for Adva Drori's installation-performance. Children slide down the hill, "buried" in the warm, fluffy embrace of the cotton, occasionally pulling out a hand or foot from the pile, immersed in an overwhelming sense of pleasure. Yet, Drori disrupts this innocence: the children's eyes are covered with black ribbons, marking them all as blind. Upon closer inspection, each child bears a scratch somewhere on their body—be it the shoulder, arm, or thigh—with a thin stream of dried blood trickling from the wound.
Drori's exhibition merges pleasure, blindness, and a flaw into an unsettling, disquieting blend. "The Pile of Children" tumbling down the hill narrates a story of a blissful childhood, encased in a transparent bubble, oblivious to the world outside. The self-reflective consciousness, assured of its righteousness, remains content in its destiny. The blindness and flaw are invisible to the children themselves, yet starkly apparent to the observer.
At the top of the hill, Adva Drori sits by a sewing machine, stitching transparent bags filled with cotton and red "fetuses." The children are continuously born but unable to pierce through the amniotic sac. This stems from the kibbutz education system, which encloses them in an ideal world of justice, truth, purity, and equality. When they finally awaken to adulthood and recognize the "other"—those who are different—their realization will always come too late, unforgivably so, and the gap in their awareness will already be beyond repair.
Cotton seeds, wool, wood, sewing machine, plastic bags and sound
5 ✕ 4.5 ✕ 4.5 m
Construction of the framework and creation of the cotton hill: Shimon Aharoni
Construction of the music box mechanism: Yuval Kedem-Galileo
Arrangement of the song "Layla Layla" (lyrics by Natan Alterman / music by Mordechai Zeira): Shmulik Robleski









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