Naama Barak
March 5, 2020

When it comes to art, most people usually have a favorite form – dance, music, cinema, painting. But what if you could combine a few to create a whole new way of expression?

That’s what longtime friends and artists Nurit Bhonker and Sigal Zahavi did. A photographer and a poet, respectively, they decided to fuse together their two professions to devise “Poeticamera,” a new artistic medium that incorporates photography, poetry and even a bit of video art.

Photo courtesy of Poeticamera

In their work, the two join together a poem and a photograph that each complement the other, adding to them new meaning and layers. These are then interspersed on a video that allows people to visualize, listen to and read the artwork, all at the same time.

“At the beginning, we set ourselves two goals that have been our guiding light: first, the photograph and the poem – each one of them – must stand in their own right. Second, the whole, which is the result of the dialogue between the two art forms and their merging together using minimal video movement, should exceed the sum of its parts,” they explain.

Photo courtesy of Poeticamera

As well as exhibiting Bhonker and Zahavi’s work, Poeticamera also serves as a platform for other Israeli poets and photographers who try their hand in this form of collaboration.

“Our vision is to keep on creating, to investigate the fascinating connection between photography and poetry, and expand the circle of photographers and poets who see in Poeticamera a fascinating genre and a home for collaborative creation,” they say.

Photo courtesy of Poeticamera

In honor of International Women’s Day, Poeticamera’s “Without Makeup” exhibition is set to be exhibited at the Jerusalem Cinematheque.

The exhibition, which opens on March 22, focuses on women, their relations with the world and their relationship with themselves. It explores formative texts on women in literature and sees Bhonker and Zahavi sharing from their personal experiences.

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