"Ursulimum" and "Everything is Urgent" installed at site specific locations at Mediations Biennale, Poznan Poland
The work "Everything Is Urgent" [2008] was installed inside an atrium of 3 large windows at the Zamek Cultural Centre
in the original building "The Imperial Castle" which was constructed in 1910 by Franz Heinrich Schwechten for William II the last
german emperor. The building has housed government offices of Germany from 1910 to 1918, and later during nazi occupation also
polish institutions between First and Second World War. The Castle is built in Neo-Romanesque style, with the participation of
the Emperor in the plans. It was considered by William to be the most "Germanic" and representing the glory of the Roman
Empire. After incorporation of Greater Poland into Nazi Germany in 1939 it was decided to transform the castle into Adolf Hitler's
residence, and reconstructed by Albert Speer. After the war, communists had plans to demolish the castle but due to lack of funds
only few nazi symbols were removed. The current tenant is the "Zamek" Culture Centre, where many concerts, theatre performances, cinemas and exhibitions take place.
Everything is Urgent confronts us with human figures whose voices are replaced by ferocious barks of dogs. Each figure was given a growling "voice" of its own,
perfectly synchronized to the extent that it virtually becomes its own, enabling a bark at the camera, at an invisible viewer-addressee. The work presents the entire spectrum
between the beastly and the human via action that cross-breeds man and dog. This violent hybridization, a type of audiovisual collage, surrenders no explanation; it merely faces us
with the hybrid creature, reducing kaleidoscopic existence to total presence which exists outside language, outside signification. There is nothing to understand here.
The viewer is forcefully introduced to a situation of "fight or flight," in which the only possible judgment call is based on survival: how to respond to an antagonistic situation.
This extremely direct work shifts the philosophical reference to Self-Other relationship (e.g. Martin Buber's I and Thou), since we confront the other directly, eye to eye, yet remain unable to understand his "language."
The work proposes forced liberation from a fundamental human element, language.
(Everything Is Urgent text by Drorit Gur Arie)


Installation view at Zamek Cultural Centre:













Installation view of Ursulimum in a jewish synagogue turned swimming pool in Poznan.
The video work "Ursulimum" [2011] is an exploration of a post accelerator discovered by a knowledge blindfolded boy 200 meters under the old city of Jerusalem.
This unique location provided an installation to take place inside the swimming pool (drained from water) 3 meters deep and 15 meters long in the "New
Synagogue" which is the only synagogue that was left after the Second World War in Poznan, despite the fact that in 1941 it was rebuilt by Wehrmacht's
soldiers and turned into a large swimming pool that lasted until 2002. The building was built by Cremer & Wolffenstein from Berlin
who specialized in the building of synagogues in Germany at the time and the construction ended in 1907.
There are plans to rebuild the synagogue to its original form with a large dome glass. The former synagogue hosts only special
cultural events and exhibitions. Currently the owner of the building is the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland.