Daboor

Artist Statement

Our collaboration began in 2017 in our second year at Shenkar. We’ve been involved in several projects together. The connection between all our projects is the search for things that have been pushed aside and forgotten. In our projects, we use film cameras in large format, which, due to their obsolescence, have been pushed aside too, the same as the photographed objects. But, we don’t see this obsolescence as a limitation, we respect it. The technical complexity and the time we invest in the process of creating the desired frame (due to the choice in film cameras) slows down our pace of work but we use this to our advantage: our prolonged stay at the site with the object gives us a different and new perspective.

On this project, all the photographed objects are machines: mechanical moving tools that have been found forsaken and abandoned. They stopped functioning a long time ago. The rust marks and nature which grew into them are an integral part of them. The objects were photographed across Israel and this piece was taken in Binyamina forest late at night, using long exposures (the shooting time of a single frame lasts between 15-40 minutes), to detach them from the time and place. They are no longer the same rusty machines. Our photograph technique turns them into living monuments. The objects were found in complete darkness and were lit by us in a continuous motion throughout the exposure time, which means we are literally inside the frame at the time of its creation.

One of the most integral values in our project is the time: the time that disassembled the machines and changed their original shape and function, the time it takes to photograph the frame and the light marks the time left upon them.

Live and work in Haifa, Graduated Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art in 2020.