Kept Alive Portraits

Image

Nira Pereg (Tel Aviv, née en 1969), Kept Alive Portraits, Jérusalem, 2009-2010

© Nira Pereg

Nira Pereg’s work explores the tragic and poetic resonances of strategies of appropriation of a space or territory. Winner of the 2013 Prix Maratier, she donated the museum the Kept Alive Portraits, series of photographs taken at the Har HaMenushot cemetery in Jerusalem, one of the largest in Israel and in great demand due to its commanding location. Orthodox Jews believe one should be buried in Jerusalem where, with the advent of the Messiah the dead will be resurrected. Nira Pereg photographed plots reserved for graves, marked םייחב רומש, (“still alive”), and which she treated as portraits of people who, either through superstition or religious conviction, have chosen to “invest” in the land of the dead.