This Is Where I Leave You
A solo exhibition by Joy Bernard
Curator: Hadasa Cohen
05.09,2024 - 05.10,2024
This Is Where I Leave You
A solo exhibition by Joy Bernard
Curator: Hadassa Cohen
At the heart of Joy Bernard’s debut solo exhibition, “This Is Where I Leave You,” is a short film that interweaves writing, dance, movement and music, turning the gallery space into a collective yet intimate theater. The video work grapples with the different ways in which the human body encounters grief and processes it. It follows the journey of three main characters: An orchestra conductor, a Tai-Chi master, and “The Dreamer”, portrayed by the artist – who accompanies the viewer throughout the film and fuses together its disparate parts.
While she focuses her gaze on physical practices and actions that revolve around both commonplace and surrealistic rituals, Bernard uses them to raise questions about the failure of language in moments of trauma. She attempts to provide language its own proper status within the sensual space: The mouth opens wide, the muscle flexes, and the hand gathers in everything that slipped away and was lost in the flow of speech. The artist turns the exhibition space into a meeting point between herself and the people and things that offered her solace in a period of intense mourning, hoping to turn absence into form and flesh out hidden longings.
Writer, director and choreographer: Joy Bernard | Director of photography: Avi Siman-Tov | Video editor: Tal Kronkop | Producer: Romy Engel | Performers: Joy Bernard, Uri Marom, Eyal Eizenberg | Musicians: Maya Lee Roman, Yoni Etzion, Tomer Einat, Hagar Maoz | Original music: Uri Marom | Sound editing and mix: Avraham Kober | Lighting: Guy Nudel | On set sound recordings: Nur Stadler and Ayelet Dolev | Costume designer: Maya Bash | Exhibition designers: Netai Halup and Or Shoshani
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About the artist and curator
Joy Bernard (b. 1996) is a choreographer, performer, multidisciplinary artist, writer and journalist who lives and works between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. She is a graduate of the bi-annual dance and creation program at Hakvutza School of Dance and Movement. She studied towards a B.A in Art History at Tel Aviv University and is currently obtaining her M. Dance, with a specialization in Choreography, at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance.
Hadassa Cohen (b. 1991) is an independent curator who lives and works in Tel Aviv. She holds a BFA (2015) and a Master’s in Theory and Policy of the Arts (2020), both from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design.
Bein Hashmashot: Between Night and Day;
End – Edge – Addendum.
Today’s times are characterized by a sense of urgency which can lead to one-dimensionality, yet also invites a complex, “multi-focal” analysis. One cannot discuss the present without considering the past and building the future.
End: There is a sense that the imminent end is lingering in the air, boundaries have been crossed, the world order has been upended, and doubt has now been cast on assumptions that were once axioms. That which was once taken for granted is no longer certain. What is good and what is bad? How can one distinguish between the two? The word “end” signifies the finishing part, the point where the thing ceases to exist.
Threshold: The threshold is a gate, an opening one must pass through in the struggle to restore meaning, decorum, and standards. In order to recover, one must consent to sojourn in threshold spaces, in destruction and uncertainty. One must agree to touch upon loss, compromise, and change. One must push up against the edges and taste the ashes.
Addendum: Lingering within a sense of destruction, anxiety, and horror enables, in the end, hope to sprout. From wallowing in the depths, the cracked and broken areas, and from disease, separation, loss, and collapsed systems, a seed sprouts, breathing new life into the consciousness and the body and helping to identify the strength embodied within them.