Ronit Porat
The Israeli artist Ronit Porat (1975, Kfar Gil' adi) studied Photography and Digital Media in Jerusalem and subsequently received a Master’s of Fine Arts degree from the Chelsea School of Art and Design in London. Her work is grounded in a strong feeling for location-anchored research. That focus has prompted her to take part in numerous residency programmes in such places as New York, Warsaw, Tel Aviv and Iceland.
Porat works with photographic materials, which – in her installations – she combines with biographical texts and materials from archives. She uses tangible things or things which have been left behind, to examine periods of time and regions. The different objects, artefacts and documents each tell a new story that runs parallel to the factual and chronological line of history. She calls the regional anchor of these memories 'lieu de mémoire’ (sites of memory). This interest in the historical consciousness originates from Porat's youth: On the Israeli kibbutz where she was born and grew up, history formed part of both the personal and the national narrative. Porat explains: 'We cannot escape our roots, but we can rethink how we look differently at history.'
Transhistoricity Coalition
Ronit Porat is part of the Transhistoricity Coalition which is made up of Castrum Peregrini, Museum van Loon, the Oude Kerk and the Reinwardt Academy of the Amsterdam University of the Arts. Porat will explore the archives of these institutions and examine the way these archives shape history. Porat's work will have a chance to develop in a unique manner in Amsterdam, a city with a multicultural environment and a rich history.
Porat talks about her work in this video: