בית, חפצים, אלמנטים - בר מוסן לוי ועידית קופסקי
Erev Rav - House-Objects-Elements Bar Mussan Levi and Edith Kofsky
The article examines the concept of the “home” and its representations, through an associative journey that proposes a discussion on the visual, architectural, and textual manifestations of home and the meanings they carry in relation to temporal events. It explores the meanings embedded within the notion of home, its destabilization, and the use of domestic elements that have been removed from their original context and relocated into public space in response to extreme events such as war and protest.
The article offers a sequence of works by Israeli and international artists, who—through acts of sampling, isolating, unraveling, and reassembling—propose a redefinition of the concept of the "home.” The events of October 7 and their aftermath have disrupted the traditional perception of home as a safe and private space; home has become a site of conflict, and its physical and emotional meaning has turned ambiguous.
While the home still symbolizes values of family, safety, and intimacy, it now also evokes fear, intrusion, vulnerability, and impermanence. The elements associated with the stable home and family unit have acquired new meanings through this shift in perception: the window, the door, the roof, the shelter room, and the wall have all been transformed beyond recognition.
This article reflects on the ways in which the events of October 7 altered the symbolic status and context of domestic components. It also explores how public installations—presented as part of protests for the return of the hostages over the past year in city squares across Israel and the world—interact with gestures from the field of art, jointly offering a renewed reading of the concept of “home,” a reading continually reshaped by the events of time and place.