Michal Rovner presents her work "Signaling" in front of Bezalel

Michal Rovner, Israel Prize winner, beloved by Bezalel, and a graduate of the Department of
Photography, will present a version of her work “Signaling”, as part of a video installation calling for the return of the hostages displayed in front of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Bezalel Campus.

The work of the artist Michal Rovner 'Signaling', is presented as part of a video installation at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem, which includes dozens of huge screens facing the municipal square near the campus on which the faces of the hostages are shown.

In the work 'Signaling', 2023, rows and rows of human figures on the border of abstraction are presented, identified with the body of her work, filling the screens, waving and making signs with their hands and bodies, with a red and flickering light emanating from them. Rovner’s works touch the depth of human experience and local history. Her work crosses boundaries of identity, time and place and deals with the fragility of human existence. To the layers that exist in her work, there is added now another layer that painfully echoes the events of October 7th, and the hostage crisis.

Michal Rovner: "These hand movements are a universal code for a call for help, a signal of distress. ‘Pay attention! I'm here, see me, don't forget me.’ The color red is related to body heat, and its movement is like accelerated breathing, a beating pulse. It's a color of urgency, danger, red lights that come on in emergency situations, alarm signals."

This initiative is part of a series of initiatives promoted at Bezalel since the outbreak of the war for the return of the hostages, the families of the hostages, and the soldiers on the front. Since the beginning of the war, over 60 projects have been established at Bezalel in which students, faculty, and graduates of the Academy take part on a fully volunteer basis.

Curator of the installation: Sharon Balaban, video artist and senior lecturer at Bezalel; In collaboration with volunteers from the Department of Screen-Based Arts.