Yael Bartana, born in 1970 in Afula, Israel, and graduated at the Bezalel Academy of Art and design, has come to be one of the country's most sought after film makers, notorious for her documentary-style films. Often in slow motion, Bartana's work manages to capture details of the undisclosed, intimate moments of a population, the moments where every single movement of uncertainty is caught by the all seeing lens of the artist.
The theme of Bartana's work often potrays the relationship between Israeli social rituals and the search for an identity, contested. Her recent work 'Mary Koszmary' (2007), is an investigation of the troubled encounter between Zionism and European Anti-Semitism, which lead to the creation of the State of Israel. Through 'Dreams and Nightmares'(translation of polish 'Mary Koszmary')Bartana raises questions about the future of her homeland and creates a comparative work between Poland and Israel, influenced by Leni Riefenstahl's 1934 nazi propaganda film,'Triumph of the Will'.
“There are a small percentage of intellectuals and a small Left. Both we and they are nations living with the trauma of the past and constantly struggling with the search for identity and definition.”
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