Local Connection - an Artistic and Social Ventur
Photos by Noa Sheizaf | Curator & creator - Lilach Zifroni
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This social project was created by cooperation between the Department for Senior Citizens in the Welfare Department and the "Young People's Center" in Hadera. The intention was to bring together and document the generation of veterans with the generation of grandchildren at points where their connection and the city are adjacent to each other. We approached ten couples who agreed to come and show us their cityscape.
There are cities that exist, and there are cities that exist within us. Inspired by the book "Hidden Cities", each participant was asked to take us to their city within. I asked the participants to choose the place that would represent the city for them; the one they remember, dream and recognize. The city in which they grew up, the city to which they return, and the points where the landscape, the personal connection and the story become their identity. I asked them to tell us the story of the connection between them, between the veteran and the young, through the place they chose to be their background
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The couples led us to all corners of the city, drawing the connection between them through landscapes, stories, sadness and joy, difficulties and pride. And she, the city, was exposed and revealed to me, so that now I have a city of my own within.
Hadera is an old city, strewn with history and legends. Some keep it in their hearts as a small fever-stricken colony, dipping in orchards to the east and sands to the west. Some see it as a town of blue collar workers, others consider it a city of immigrants - a kind of conglomerate of communities, and there are those who see it as a renovated city where many young people, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the first generations are coming back to find there their homes and the root of their belonging. That's how it is when the connection is local.
This journey, which puts Hadera on the map, was documented with wonderful sensitivity by Noa Sheizaf. She is also a daughter of the place, and, with an accurate eye and a deep understanding, connected all the points on the map to one city woven with endless stories, unique places and a bond of love.
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Lilach Zifroni, curator and exhibition creator 2018
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Italu Calvino, "The invisible cities", The Workers' Library, 1984