Video Art

A woman without a home

27:25 min
A woman without a Home poses the question: what is home? Is it family, friends, the physical place where we live – or perhaps the body itself? The body, which when ill or broken, can betray us, abandon us, and leave us behind. Maybe the true home is the bed: the place where we dream, cry, make love, and bring life into the world.

The bed knows all our secrets and hidden thoughts, and when we die, it carries our body. The bed can also become a homeland. In the video, I am seen dragging a bed from place to place, searching for a safe and quiet space to rest my head. In the end, I place the bed in the sea – a space without borders, without walls, and without armies.

The Other side

28:42 min
The Other Side inverts the shared history of both peoples. In 1948, David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister declared the establishment of the State of Israel, which led to most Palestinians losing their land and homes, with many expelled or forced to flee to other countries.

In this work, his voice is heard again, but this time it does not proclaim the independence of Israel – it declares the independence of Palestine, in the same words and at the same historic moment. Yet, even in this reversed scenario, the outcome remains unchanged: fences and walls surround both peoples, wars continue, and by the end of the film, the state itself disappears.

Strangenees

In 1917, the Jewish residents of Tel Aviv and Neve Tzedek were expelled from their homes by the Ottoman authorities. Many left carrying the keys to their homes, holding on to the hope that one day they would return.

Some died during their displacement from hunger and disease, while others were able to return to their homes after the end of Ottoman rule in the region.
Both stories carry the experience of displacement, loss, and the longing for home, yet there is a significant difference between them: many of the displaced Jewish residents were eventually able to return, while many Palestinians are still unable to do so.
My video artwork Strangeness emerged from questions that have accompanied me throughout my life: What is home? Where do we belong? And can a person feel like a stranger even within their own family, homeland, and home?
I have never truly managed to feel a stable sense of home. The suitcase has become an inseparable part of my life, not merely as an object for carrying belongings from one place to another.
For this work, I built a large suitcase that I could physically enter, close its door, and hide inside. Within that suitcase, I felt safe. I could control the boundaries of my own space, deciding when to open and when to close it. It became my home, my shelter, my womb.
Today, since the outbreak of the war, I have been living temporarily in Paris. A suitcase continues to accompany me, containing practically all my possessions. I do not know which country I will move to next. This sense of impermanence, uncertainty, and the continuous search for a place I can call home is not only a subject of my artistic work, but part of the reality I live.
Before filming, I develop a storyboard through drawings and sketches, translating my ideas into a visual sequence. This process allows me to explore the movement, composition, atmosphere, and emotional language of each scene before bringing it to life.
In Strangeness, I direct and perform, design the sets and costumes, and personally constructed the large suitcase that serves as a central element of the work.
I chose to film people who are not professional actors and have no experience in front of the camera. The participants come from different backgrounds — Palestinians, Jews, Europeans, and Russians — regardless of religion, language, or identity. Through their presence, I sought to touch upon a human experience that crosses borders and identities.
The video opens with figures walking and wandering, each carrying a suitcase. In the background, a Romanian lullaby is heard, a tahlila (تهليلة) — a song sung to a baby to help them fall asleep.
I chose a lullaby because it brings us back to a primal memory of protection and safety, to a place where we were held and sheltered, before we knew the meaning of borders, countries, and identities. The singing voice becomes a kind of home that we can carry within ourselves, even when we have no physical home.
At the end of the work, the figures attempt to escape toward the sea, hoping to reach boats that will carry them somewhere else. But instead of reaching safety, they drown in the sea.
The sea, which was supposed to offer a passage toward a new life, becomes the place where their journey ends. This image echoes the fate of countless refugees and migrants who have attempted to cross the sea in search of shelter and safety, only to lose their lives in its waters.
Strangeness is a work about displacement and wandering, but also about the profound human need to belong, to feel protected, and to find a place one can call home.
For me, the suitcase is the place where the boundaries between home and exile, between safety and fear, and between life and loss begin to blur.

Note: The original storyboard drawings created during the development of Strangeness can be viewed on this website under the Painting section.

Body recalled

24:28 min
The video art addresses the wedding day – the moment when the bride and groom unite physically and encounter each other for the first time.

The work presents rituals practiced in different cultures, some of which continue to this day, often in more modern forms. Throughout history, women have often been perceived as earth, as trees, as a natural element – a place of roots and fertility. Yet even in the modern era, despite social change, patriarchal control persists, holding on to ancient rituals and perceptions. The work seeks to reveal how the male gaze upon women remains dominant , even as the rituals themselves evolve.

Beyond the walls

8:43 min
Beyond the walls depicts men and women dressed in white, appearing like ghosts or monks. They emerge from the narrow alleys of an old neighborhood, carrying children, jars, trees, and other objects.

At one moment they open their mouths in a silent cry – but no voice is heard – and then they disappear. The work evokes a collective memory, briefly reviving the presence of those who lived in the neighborhood and its houses before 1948.

Longing

3:05 min
Longing reflects on the wall built after 1967, and on the fear that more walls will spread and multiply in other places. The wall becomes a symbol of forced separation, of families and people who can no longer see one another.

The work expresses a sense of loss, the fracture of everyday life, and the longing for human connection that has been broken.

Rebirth

15:36min
Every religion and belief relates to death in a different way, yet most of us grow up fearing the mystery it carries – the fear of separation from a loved one.

This video art reflects on death from another perspective: as acceptance of mortality, as purification of the body, and as a form of joy, where the burial ritual becomes a human farewell to what we hold dear. The work is not only about the end of life, but also about illuminating life itself – through the awareness of death, the value of living becomes sharper.

House

5:56 min
I walk barefoot along the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem – the path where Jesus carried the cross – balancing a colorful house, like a small palace, on my head.

Around me, soldiers and policemen pass, women carry heavy loads on their heads, some hiding their faces, while the noise of the market fills the air. The house I carry is both a childhood fantasy of a princess awaiting her prince, and a collective symbol of belonging, pain, and the struggle over a home that two peoples continue to fight for. Through a feminine gaze, the journey becomes both a prayer and an inner battle – between the dream of a palace and the harsh reality, where the house is a heavy burden and a site of ongoing conflict.

Fasatine

10:33 min
Fasatine takes place in the Palestinian village of Lifta, which was depopulated during the 1948 war and later occupied by Israel.

The houses still stand, but they are ruined, empty, and abandoned. Among the stones and trees I placed eight long black dresses, without human bodies. They stand like silent monuments, evoking the absent presence of those who once lived there. The video has no sound – only the wind carries the echo of the people who were displaced.