18
In the middle of broken worlds
She rises up.
All nights long
She spins the web
Of what could happen to her.
(Astar Shamir, “Stronger than The Wind”.
7
Translation from the page http://perso.wanadoo.fr/isa-gali-atari- unofficial/translations.html)The issue’s fifth Section,
“The Power of Fracture”,
is composed of
two stories of personal journeys from the point of fracture to the
point of coping, creation and growth. The artist
Liron Breier–Danziger
describes a journey she took to her past through the lens of her camera;
a journey in which she revisited sites of fracture, scenes of crime. The
journey begins with one innocent picture of a house. A pretty house
surrounded by greenery, a house of plenty, a house where a crime
had been committed – an eight year old girl was sexually abused. The
writer takes us through stations of life to the place where she and
other girls, young and older women were sexually victimized. The
exposure of these “innocent” crime scenes (a well-groomed yard, a
school or a street in a residential neighborhood) brings back the sound
of those injured girls, young and older women. During the journey
the writer challenges us with the following questions: what is the
breaking point in cases of sexual abuse? Is the effect of the fracture
only individual and personal? What is the place of the public in the
victim’s cry for help? The writer’s story indicates that the power of the
journey’s story is in creating a renewed narrative that makes the pain
accessible through art and reveals points of social-political blindness.
Barak Biton’s
journey story begins with complex and difficult life
circumstances – parents’ separation, life in the shadow of poverty,
social exclusion and lapsing into behaviors of anger, frustration and
alienation. The writer describes this journey – first through the eyes of
a child growing with existential anxiety, with the shame of poverty and
power struggles with his environment, later on through the eyes of a
rebellious teenager, who roams the streets and joins other teenagers
7
First
publication
in Gali Atari
’
s
album
“
the Day After
” (1992),
by NMC
.