Behind The Mask
Behind the Mask
A Group Photography Exhibition
Guidance, Mentorship and Curatorship: Raouf Abu Fana, Rama Yazma
About the Exhibition
Masks play an important role in different cultures. They protect and give strength at the same time. A mask allows a person to undergo a metamorphosis. When wearing a mask, one sheds one’s everyday, social and familiar identity, so often limited by its rules and habits. Through the mask, one can journey into different realms of existence.
So who are we really behind the mask? Arabs? Jews? Israelis? Palestinians? What is the identity hidden behind the mask we place on our faces? Where do we live — in a village, a city, a moshav or a kibbutz? And what does that say about us?
Most often, we express opinions and statements shaped by the close circles in which we grew up. The “Through Different Eyes” group uses the neutral white mask as a tool that allows its participants, for one moment, to be equal like “every person” — without barriers, without borders and without stereotypes.
The mask, which contains nothing, can express every emotion, every identity, every character, every gender and every social position. The emptiness of expression is equal to the fullness of expression. When the members of the group added color to the masks, they began to reveal their identities, feelings and wishes. New faces behind the mask gradually began to emerge throughout the process.
“We are the most exposed generation, and perhaps the least exposed. Everyone is busy with screens and masks. Perhaps masks are a protective tool against the constant state of a judgmental society.” — Noga Tamir.
The group examines how shared dialogue can continue even when the masks are removed, when we stand exposed, one layer less, and learn to know and truly look at one another more deeply.
The exhibition before you explores connections and conflicts, identities and concealments, the revelation of sincere feelings of love, anger, laughter, jealousy, pain and hope, and asks whether, and how, it is possible to live here differently when the masks are removed.
Selected Quotes
“We are the most exposed generation, and perhaps the least exposed. Everyone is busy with screens and masks. Perhaps masks are a protective tool against the constant state of a judgmental society.”
— Noga Tamir
“We can live together; where there is a will, there is a way.”
— Arin Anbusi
“Every person sees the truth from a different angle.”
— Hatam Omar
“Between the fence and the mask — only the sky is the limit.”
— Noa Horowitz
“What truly matters is having people who know you beyond the masks, and that we are satisfied with who we are beneath them.”
— Noga Tamir
“I wish I could be like photographs: preserve memories and moments, and simply make the bad things disappear.”
— Noa Horowitz
Exhibition Participants
Erez Pinto, Arin Anbusi, Bishara Masarwa, Hila Lahat, Hatam Omar, Majd Agbaria, Muhammad Almalek, Mufleh Kabha, Noga Barzon, Noga Tamir, Noa Horowitz, Sivan Inbar, Sima Atamna, Abdullah Watad, Adi Edelstein, Omer Pinto, Eran Avishar, Reem Atamna, Shahar Ofdisano.
Exhibition Events
- Exhibition Opening: September 19, 2019
- Exhibition Closing: October 5, 2019