Sharon Ya’ari • Room A

Room A

Bnei Or, Beersheba, 2010—2020

About

Bnei Or, Beersheba, 2010–2020
36 prints bound as book, 59.2 x 148 cm

Documentation spanning 11 years of an open lot in the southern city of Beersheba. Constructed out of geometric, concrete elements, it is an unassuming, beautiful place — perhaps a plaza, perhaps a sculpture, perhaps a playground. Situated at the edge of a group of housing projects that were built at the start of the 1970s, it has clear modernist sculptural resonances.

When first photographed, the place was empty; later, failed attempts at gardening were documented: 3 palm trees were planted and, over the years, withered gradually to death due to a harmful pest. At the same time, work was begun nearby preparing for the construction of a new neighborhood of residential buildings that, as designed, would swallow up and destroy the place. The elements of concrete were neglected and began to crumble and break. The identity of the designer is not known; no records were found of the design or construction of the place. At the end of this extended documentary process, the 13 concrete tubes of different sizes and diameters, weighing 9 tons, which constituted the main sculptural element of the place, were pulled out, shipped, and relocated to the garden of the Haus Esters villa in Krefeld, Germany. The modernist element was returned to its origins, if only as an archaeological artefact from the east.

The process of relocation is completed and yet, despite the shared genetic element and the easy integration, the presence of the concrete elements in the garden holds the possibility of strangeness and defiance — as if the middle eastern version desecrates the architectural moment in Krefeld.

Room A

Bnei Or, Beersheba, 2010—2020

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