Shomer (2019) is a large-scale multimedia installation that includes video works, projection pieces, printed posters, and 3d-printed sculptures. The work dismantles and reassembles the structure and the story of Magen Abraham Synagogue in Beirut to explore concepts such as authenticity and preservation, and their relationship with human memory. The spectator’s movement in the gallery space reveals different layers of the installation, presenting moments in the synagogue’s complicated history. Visitors walk around its two stories while listening to a soundtrack through wireless earphones. The soundtrack is based on an interview with a Lebanese-born Israeli, who recalls his memories as a child who grew up in Beirut and as an Israeli soldier who returned to his city of birth during the war.
Shomer was presented as a solo exhibition curated by Avi Lubin at Hamidrasha Gallery, Tel Aviv. Every evening at dusk, additional works are projected on the gallery’s glass windows, for viewing from the street level. These works echoed the Beirut synagogue into the public sphere in Tel Aviv and blurred, even more, the boundary between memory and illusion. For the closing event of the show, a live audiovisual performance was conducted by the artist in collaboration with musicians Aviad Zinemanas and Yael Lavie.