Body of Work, human sized crochet baskets with sound.
This project was shown at the Haifa Museum of Art in 2016 (curated by Svetlana Reingold) , Ronald Feldman gallery NYC in 2017 (organised by Remember The Women Institute) , the African Studies Gallery Tel Aviv in 2018 (curated by Idit Toledano) and Holon Design Museum 2019 (curated by Maya Dvash.)
Body of Work marks the first collaboration of Yefman with the Kuchinate Collective organization which was established in order to assist African women asylum seekers who survived the torture camps in Sinai. These women were kidnapped on their journey to Israel and were held for long months in the Sinai desert by Bedouin smugglers. They were subjected to severe torture and abuse until the ransom money for their release had been paid. To earn a living, and as a way of healing from their traumas, they create and sell traditional African baskets. Both Yefman and the collective members reside in southern Tel Aviv and share a love for knitting. The artist uses traditional handicrafts, especially knitting, as a method of coping with traumas. Similarly, the project offers women the opportunity to express their painful stories through knitting. The project helps them reconcile their memories from their homelands with their current identities and focuses on the process of adapting to the complex reality of life in Israel, the repetitiveness of knitting helping in coping with this existential tension. Each basket tells, literally, the story of its maker’s escape, her voice emanating and giving testimony from within.
Philosopher Giorgio Agamben claimed that "only in a world in which [...] the citizen has been able to recognize the refugee that he or she is – only in such world is the political survival of humankind today thinkable." It is a liberating notion, one that dissolves the distinction between citizen and refugee and recognizes the uprooted nature of the self. In opposition to doctrines of social and political separation, Yefman proposes a "relationship of mutual exterritoriality." In this manner, the works of Yefman and the Kuchinate Collective converge beyond the borders of the familiar to create a new, universal reality.
Installation view, Haifa Museum of Art 2017 installation photos: Stas Korolov