Bring back the Light

Group Exhibition / Women of Kibbutz Be’eri

This exhibition is the work of a group of women who survived the massacre at Kibbutz Be’eri, who created for nine months in a visual diary using the “Pages of the Soul” method, initiated and guided by Rakefet Hadar.

In this creative method, deep emotional processes can be expressed and processed, through color, image and word.

The group of women created within personal journals, which enabled them to touch their inner world, which underwent such a severe upheaval, in safe conditions and with supportive accompaniment.

The visual journal, as a secret-keeping archetype, gave them a place to which they cast the most intimate contents and thus freed them from the need to carry on their hearts all that they had gone through, from the October 7th.

Into the SoulPages they unpacked experiences, sensations, emotions, images, and in the process strengthened their souls with dreams, hopes, and hope.

In preparation for the exhibition, each artist selected several pages from her personal journal, which she wanted to share with the audience. The artists also agreed to reveal the original journals themselves and allow viewers to view them.

It is a moving tribute that plucks at the heartstrings of us all, and in these troubling days is full of hope for healing, unity and peace.

Curators: Yael Margalit and Rakefet Hadar

Photographer:Venezian- Heftig Studio

On the Exhibition

The Be’eri women were introduced to the visual journal through their friends Anat Tavori and Orit Swirsky, who established a SoulPages Visual Journaling group in Be’eri in 2018.

The original group consisted of seven women, three of whom were murdered on Black Saturday: Orit Swirsky, Maayana Hershkovitz and Mazi Bahar. 

Fornine  months, the women of Be’eri worked through their visual journals to express their longing, the fear that never lets go, the severe pain of loosing their loved ones and the desire for small moments of forgetfulness, of devotion to materials and working together.

Together they created a group, a community of women that became a support for each other, a group in which one can both speak and be silent, one can cry, one can also rejoice, and above all – one can play for a moment with colors, images, lines and discover surprising things.

Their SoulPages are built on seven simple elements: intent, the magic of chance, background, color, image, line and text. 

Next to the art works you will find words that each wrote about her work, words that describe her feelings.

The artists participating in the exhibition are: Orit Swirsky, Ella Greenstein, Batya Segev, Hadas Sagi, Vered Gold, Hamutal Hargil, Hannah Brin, Talia Dvory, Yochi Alon, Leah Kapitanov, Michal Cohen, Mazi Bachar , Maayana Hershkovitz , Anat Tavori, Ferach Filo, Perula Gas, Pnina Avni, Anat Tavori, Aliza Gad, Tzipi Zorea, Rivka Bira and Shoshka Steinhardt.

Short Movies about the process