Artist Talk: Ronit Porat

Ronit Porat’s work explores the physicality of historical periods through their traces and leftovers. This engagement with other historical terrains starts in a circular motion that begins with the personal, shifts to the collective and then returns to the self. In doing so, she considers the ways in which images resonate with memory and belonging.

Acting as an investigator in a crime scene, she looks for clues into how the past has infiltrated the present; she hunts in the past, collecting visual loot in order to make sense of the present. This combination allows her to reshape the subjects she is intrigued with, while conscious of the contexual source of the image, along with the medium of photography and its evolution in the digital age.

Specifically, her work examines the transparent borders of gender in Europe until the late 30’s where the notion of a liberated “New Woman” in the public sphere, decadence and bursting sexuality became popular and how the camera became a personal research tool that placed the identity of the women in the center. By documenting, scanning and framing others’ images, and based on collective memories and autobiographical images, she investigates the meanings of disappearance, void and the creation of ownership.

Free to the public. 

Located at the Millennium Knickerbocker Hotel.