Diaspora: the dispersion, movement, scattering of a people. How to visualize a phenomenon that covers movement, and therefore does not stay still to let it be captured?

In this installation I am visualizing parts of this invisible and elusive ?ewish diaspora.There lies a fundamental ambivalence in diaspora: it encompasses both the relief and the fear of being without boundaries. The dreaming, the fantasizing about future scenarios of a homeland to return to is encouraged in diasporic communities. This in contrast to the current politics in Israel, as the Zionist politics believe there is already a homeland to return to for all ?ews, namely Israel.

This work contains algorithm-scattered diary fragments of ?ewish people of my acquaintance, who do not live in Israel, and who all, in their own way, feel part of a/the ?ewish diasporic identity. Diary fragments are like a prosthesis of human memory; they are physical extensions of your memory. The diary fragment thus holds a piece of the writer’s memory and identity. Moreover, the temporal ambivalence (the difference in time between the occurrence of an event, the writing down of this event, and the re-reading of this fragment) of diary fragments depicts time-travelling and dreaming about the future.

The video projects the desert, filmed from a vehicle: traveling to an unknown destination, from an unknown place.

See Behind the Visual: begraven verhalen and Behind the Visual: vruchtbaringskampen for two of the diasporic fragments.