| This project will inquire to what extent visual art affects social constructions and political thought. Focusing on present-day Israel, I will examine the ways in which various artworks and exhibitions employ representations of military figures, objects, and perspectives to disrupt rather than support prevailing conceptions of national identity and cultural memory. Military hierarchies, stereotypes and norms of conduct are embedded in the discursive and visual production of mainstream Israeli identity. The Israeli army is established through numerous practices as an institution that is social and cultural as much as it is military: the melting pot at the core of the identity transformation from Diaspora Jew into the well-rooted Israeli. As a result, the figure of the Israeli soldier becomes inseparable from that of the lawful civilian. This project will examine artworks and exhibitions that contest this militaristic identity construction, either through their subject matter, their use of art historical genres, or their display format. Such artworks and exhibitions reflect critically on how the positions and belief systems of Israeli subjects structure the political situation around them, and suggest that a demilitarization of the Israeli subject is a necessary step toward a different political conception of the Middle East. |
