Gateway to Hope - Based on a True Story

September 2023
Every story can be told through the lens of ‘family’. Since Cain and Abel, family has been the source of stories, extreme emotions, and conflicts. Love, hate, jealousy, envy, power, and territoriality - all of these exist in the small family circle, representing a larger scope of humanity.
The starting point for the project is a collection of family slides that were taken by my father during the late 60s and 70s. In the past year, I returned to the neighborhood where I grew up, following my father’s photos and my own memories.
I grew up in a small and sleepy town in central Israel, whose only advantage is its relative proximity to Tel Aviv - the central city where I have lived for the past 20 years. Ironically, my hometown’s name can be translated to English as ‘Gateway to Hope’.
In the current project, I blend together copies of the old family slides with the new images I have taken. As part of the process, I am using Midjourney’s image generator AI tool as well as additional and more conservative image processing tools.I am gradually turning the photos into small static memorial sites while fueling them with continuous and sub-continuous emotions and thoughts.