THIS WAS HOME comprises three screens, which present three generations of the artist’s family. On one screen her maternal grandfather, Karl Ribstein, another shows her father, Yossi Levy, and the third presents the artist herself. Levy documented each of these protagonists on a journey back to their childhood city and to the home where they grew up, which they had not revisited since having to leave it in their childhood. Levy’s grandfather returns to Sosnowiec, Poland, from where he was sent in the 1940s to Auschwitz concentration camp.
Her father returns to his hometown Cairo, Egypt, from which he was uprooted in the 1950s when his family immigrated to Israel, where they lived in a ma’abara (immigrant camp) in Haifa; and Levy herself returns to her childhood home in Atlanta, Georgia, which she had to leave on her family’s return from the United States to Tel Aviv, her birthplace. The depiction of three generations emphasizes the differences between their personal stories, related to different times and places. At the same time, however, presented side by side they turn into a multi-generational journey of identity, each becoming a chapter in the age-old history of Jewish wanderings.
The project was carried out in cooperation with Allianz Kulturstiftung.
This project was selected through the Open Call track, which was made possible thanks to the support of the Jewish Humanitarian Fund.
