WHISPERING HOME
צועקת את הבית שלי על אזניים ערלות.
בוכה את הבית שלי בשפה בלתי מובנת.
מדברת את הבית שלי בקול בלתי נשמע.
ולוחשת את הבית שלי
Shouting my home upon deaf ears.
Crying my home in an incomprehensible language.
Speaking my home in an unheard voice.
And whispering my home
Ich schreie meiner Heimat auf taube Ohren.
Ich weine meinem Zuhause in einer unverständlichen Sprache.
Ich spreche meinem Zuhause in einer ungehörten Stimme.
Und ich flüstere mir ein Zuhause
In Whispering Home, Liraz searches for stability by collecting symbols of home. She marks her own bodily home and stitches with a needle to capture the physical aspect of domesticity and belonging. At the same time, she transforms everyday objects into symbols of hope thereby giving the abstract idea of home a tangible physical existence. Liraz has displaced herself from her homeland and is on a constant search for belonging in the respective new country and her new home. She often feels that she can maintain her only connection to her true self and her true body of existence through her mother tongue and through asserting her language and speaking it out loud. But since speaking her language in public spaces often evokes hostile reactions, Liraz turns her home into a whisper, which sometimes becomes loud through other ways of expression. Liraz chose to utilize bed sheets in which people have slept many nights. These bed sheets symbolize and reflect the most secure place in a person’s everyday life. Liraz counteracts this perceived security by stitching the bed sheets with a needle. At the same time, she holds on to the feeling of security through a partly violent act that attaches the thread of home into the fabric .
Liraz starts each work by composing a poem. She then writes the poem on her body, documents it, rips the bed sheets apart and marks them with the documentation. Finally, she stitches the word ´home´ with a needle on each object. Through this long process, Liraz is producing her own journey which results in many pieces of herself as parts of her own body – her own real home.
Whispering Home was exhibited as part of Geflüsterte Überlebensstrategien exhibition together with the artists Karina Villavicencio and Alexandra Bisbicus at Pony Royal, Neukölln, Berlin from February 27th until March 13th 2015 and in the exhibition of the Salaam Schalom Initiative, part of the art festival: 48 hours Neukölln in the exhibition: Welcome to our Home! curated by Adi Liraz with the co-curation of Sanija Kulenovic
From Spring 2017 on, my work: Whispering Home can be purchased at the Jewish Museum Berlin