On Sunday evening in the forest of Amminadab, was the artist and culinary custard Hadad above the silver tray on which were placed pieces of lamb, coarse bulgur, chopped mint and preserved lemon (or as he explained to guests out to Israel, occupied lemon). He mixed all the ingredients slowly.Haddad was in the midst of slow cooking workshop he gave a group of artists, curators, scholars and activists, who gathered on Thursday last week at the edge of Tel Aviv for a march to the capital a week old.
The purpose of the trip, which inaugurated the cultural season of Jerusalem, was to create a new space of time and place in which to develop a bush pilot, a culture of walking and meeting the people whose world does not necessarily allow them to meetings like this – slow encounters.
But the day after the date of departure, was arrested in Tel Aviv Daphne Leaf and social protest was sparked in March many tried to start. Arrest led to the organization, and organization led to a spontaneous demonstration on Saturday, during which police detained dozens of protesters, some violence. Among the immigrants went to Jerusalem and several activists from Israel in protest of the prominent social activists in the United States, artist Noah Fischer. After hesitating for a moment, they decided to turn back and join the protesters in Tel Aviv. Thus, coincidence or not, a member of one of the leaders of Wall Street Occupy the beginning of Israeli protests season.
Participants walk to Jerusalem. Photo: Ilya Melnikov
“I was impressed by the demonstration in Tel Aviv last weekend. Were there higher energies, more people Msharicho and the demonstration is not used by the rules – it’s always a good way to start a demonstration,” said Fisher told Haaretz “, as he sat exhausted on a mattress in the forest after drying another long, hot day journey. “People have crossed the lines invisible divide the space city, they entered the bank and got on the freeway, and I see this sign of protest has great power. We went on the road, even started to run towards Jerusalem, and in contrast to the demonstration was in New York, where we tried to block the Brooklyn Bridge and arrested more than 700 people, was here a very good sense of possibility to demonstrate “.
“I think it would be very difficult to stop the ball now,” added Fisher. “Once you feel the freedom and power and begin to feel the options open, very difficult to stop the activity. It felt like a crazy dream – come to Israel and be a demonstration. Active movement which I completely shattered all my plans for my life,” he said.
Fisher, 35, raised and educated in a Buddhist monastery in San Francisco. His father, Norman Fischer, is a Jewish rabbi – a Buddhist bell.His mother is not Jewish. Early 2000s came to Fisher, then a young man of 23, to find himself, as he describes, in Israel. “I came to Israel is a Jewish young man and very well trying to understand something about the meaning of life. One of the ways that were open to boys as I was coming here, to join the team, and get a piece of land in the West Bank. Promised me something very tempting, but in the end I said it did not. The day after I left the second intifada broke out. ” He also stressed during his visit to present it violates cultural boycott of Israel, a fact that he has mixed feelings about it: “Since the beginning of the protest I feel that everything is in question, including the perception of Israel, and I try during my visit to see all sides of the fence and cross the dividing lines as much as possible”
Noah Fischer to Jerusalem. Photo: Ilya Melnikov
“This is a strange time, you can not talk more black and white. Facebook, for example, is a very effective protest movements, but also a way to extract personal information about individuals for marketing and selling and this is a way of controlling where your brain was directed perhaps daydreaming,” he says.
When Fischer finished a master’s degree in art at Columbia University in 2004, the art market was at its height. Artists broke sales records, Chinese collectors buy art in wholesale lots and new galleries have taken over key areas. But the art market also suffered a severe blow with the economic crisis beginning in 2008, as Fisher. He says: “I attended public school and was on track for success, and Cshsok collapsed, I was very disturbed about my role as an artist. I was exhausted and I have worked with business people who wanted to work with them. Then I realized I wanted to make art for money, but I do not want to stream it back the art world, but to bring her out. ”
Way to the heart of protest began in the summer of 2011, Fisher was on Wall Street with a mask in the form of American currency (over) the face and threw hundreds of dollars to the street. Fisher and other activists managed to persuade people to donate money Bkixtartr (a common method for raising money online), designed to be discarded. They wanted to use the most sacred commodity in the United States and empty it of content.
This marked the young artist’s way of life very different to the route he had dreamed about during his studies. At a later stage of the protest Fisher also founded the group “Conquer the museums”, fighting injustice in the art world.
Joining the campaign connects, he says, a sense that capitalism forces us to practice fast and linear thinking – as a limit. This is also why this protest claim that the requirements are clear.
“The question ‘What do you want?’ Came from a bed of politicians to testify on what they want and nourish their own desires into the existing system. People have trouble understanding the movement of social protest world is the movement of a new generation and we decided not to submit to the dictates of the media and politics. Not impose limits on the movement, “he says.
The bubble is the problem
Movement action produces artistic and cultural discourse on borders and red lines. Artistic act of walking is done today by a number of known artists in the world where, Francis Alÿs, Shilpa Gupta, Matthew Buckingham and director Werner Herzog. Last year also took place in the country, sponsored by the Haifa Museum, “Jane’s Walks” – walks around the city in memory of Jane Jacobs, one of the leading female thinkers on urban thinking. But walking is not only action that investigates space, it also becomes almost inevitable, slowly.
“One of the things that live neo – liberal offer is on a tight schedule,” says Fisher. “City living ensures you always have to do and that produces a certain perception of our time. Also demonstrations there is a sense of urgency, but walking is not urgent and lets things develop organically. The surest way not to change anything is to decide on jurisdiction specific and then consume the media backing up your perspective and surround yourself with people who think like you. If you found your bubble, you can be sure that you are the problem “.
Fisher said that “what happens in this meeting of the group of people in that particular is different from, and it is similar to what happened in Occupy Wall Street. There were democrats, anarchists and even members of Ron Paul. Made sure there would be room for everyone. Also have here is a religious, artists Tel springs, fighters combat the former, Arabs, activists and journalists, and we have conversations in a very sincere and surprising. was here a guy who talked about things he did during his military service in Hebron. When I asked him if he did something unethical, he replied without hesitation, yes. such person I’m not used to meet, and such person, he did the things I and other visitors can learn a lot “.
Like the slow cooking movement that promotes Hadad, also walking produces a different ratio and even the target environment, and places emphasis on quality. “The slowdown is at least an interesting experiment,” Fischer said with a smile. “When I return to New York, will come with new questions about my life and my activism – through activism may be slower.”
