Family Affair

Avraham Burg, author and former speaker of the Knesset, opened the exhibition FAMLIY AFFAIR with a lecture on 22 January 2015 at Castrum Peregrini, Amsterdam. The exhibition with photographs by Reli Avrahami and texts by Avner Avrahami showcases how inclusive a society can be, how the human level overcomes divisions.

An exhibition curated by Galia Zur Geev and produced by Jüdisches Museum Hohenems.

 

The exhibition was on show until 28 February 2015.

For ten years, Reli Avrahami and Avner Avrahami have wandered throughout Israel, photographing hundreds of families and questioning them about their daily lives, about their  dreams and beliefs, their origins and their relations. Their portraits appeared  week by week Haaretz becoming a routine for Israeli readers that encountered a variety of people through a colourful photograph and a very personal text. The traces of tensions in the Israeli society, national and religious, social, political or ethnic, are visible in the ambience of everyday life, in the environment of living rooms and family stories of those born in the country or immigrated, Jews and Arabs, Muslims, and Christians, coming from Europe, Africa, and Asia. Of the hundreds of families and their stories, about 80 were selected for this exhibition and a few new portraits have been especially produced of families from Amsterdam.

Family Affair is part of Castrum Peregrini’s programme Memory Machine. We are what we remember about our memory and what it says about who we are: as an individual and as a group, about how collective memory is formed, influenced and eroded. For the full programme, see: www.facebook.com/MemoryMachinebyCastrumPeregrini

About the artists and the curator:

Reli Avrahami is photographer. She was born in Israel in 1960. She works and lives in Israel. On 6^th January 2015, Reli received the prestigious Enrike Kablin Award in photography for her oeuvre:  “The portraits and families photos of Reli Avrahami are carved in the Israeli collective memory and accompany the view of the Israeli society of itself. The photographer-artist, active since the mid-80’s, is counted with the elite journalism photographers in Israel. She puts in front of her camera people and faces from every social class, age, sex and origin, and captures them with persistent loyalty to her esthetical agenda. … For her commitment to social photography in Israel and her contribution to the status of photography in the public consciousness and conversation, the Kablin award for her oeuvre is given to her.”  Together with her husband author and journalist Avner Avrahami, who wrote the texts accompanying her portraits, she is a columnist for several Israeli newspapers.

Galia Gur Zeev is photographer and curator. She was co-founder of the Limbus-Place For Photography in Tel Aviv. From 1992 till 2009 she was the director and curator of this institution.

About the opening speaker:

Avraham Burg (1955), is an Israeli author and politician; he was formerly a member of the Knesset, a chairman of the Jewish Agency of Israel and a Speaker of the Knesset. Burg was Labor Party when a member of the Knesset. In January 2015 Avraham Burg announced that he has joined Hadash – the democratic front for peace and equality for Jews and Arabs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The exhibition was made possible with the support of:

Mondriaan Fonds, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, KUNSTENISRAËL, Bundesministerium für Europa, Integration und
Äußeres, Wien and the Embassy of Israël in the Netherlands.

For more information, images or interview possibilities with the artists, the curator or Avraham Burg,

please contact Frans Damman at f.damman@castrumperegrini.nl  or +31 20 6235287