Butcher Rules
A still from LAND, 2013, 4:36 minutes, HD video
Zohar Kawaharada & Yuval Yairi LAND presents a filmed series of acts performed over several months and presented as non-linear fragments. Two opposing forces are in confrontation: a human figure and the letters of a word. The figure confronts the word and the power of its connotations by attempting to deconstruct it, to destroy it but also to come to terms with it.
Suggested here, is an examination of the idea of historical, religious or moral rights to a place, rights which are usually enforced by violence occupation, illegal settlement, colonialization, dedeportation, exile - matters of choice or force. The attitude of the human figure changes from a love of homeland and the desire for self-sacrifice, to a surrendering to fate, a feeling of claustrophobia and despair, and the desire to break away and leave for another place.
Holding a pole and the four letters of the word LAND, the figure undergoes transformations in its differing relationship to the actual place - the enclosed space, and to the word itself. There are "ceremonies" and "rituals" which allude to heroic monuments and local or universal icons.
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Zohar Kawaharada & Yuval Yairi