"Gabrea": ​​a new exhibition at the Haifa City Museum

The exhibition provides an artistic glimpse of the community garden in the Neve David neighborhood in Haifa, which is devoutly cultivated by the neighborhood's Ethiopian residents

On October 15.10.24, 1994, a new solo exhibition by the artist Rivka Blai will be opened to the general public at the Haifa City Museum. In the Neve David neighborhood in Haifa, there is a community garden that is cultivated by the residents of the neighborhood. For a year, the artist Rivka Belai, who immigrated from Ethiopia in XNUMX, documented her father and the other residents of the neighborhood inside the garden. The immigration from Ethiopia changed the way of life of the immigrants, and forced them to find new professions and places of livelihood, but in their heart and in their identity, each of them is still a farmer ("Gabbra" in Amharic). The garden allows them to continue to engage in activities related to their cultural roots.

Rebecca's documentation allows a glimpse into the daily life of those male farmers, who over the years created a new community inside the garden. according to Yifat Ashkenazi, curator of the Haifa City Museum: "The exhibition will feature two video works and a collection of photographs. The works in the exhibition document male figures who have faced for several decades a constant desire to adapt to a new place. Rebecca chose to document them with the understanding that they built a place that allows them to do what they are good at, a place where they can create Something new and to pick the fruits of their success. In the middle of the garden there is a foundation for the construction of a traditional Ethiopian house made of wood and mud. The construction of the house is still not finished, and its partial presence symbolizes the middle point between the house there and the house in the exhibition The Gojo is a significant place."

The exhibition is presented in a frame "Space Art Greenhouse" project of Haifa Museums, which has been operating in recent years and brings to the fore artistic projects that are done in collaboration with a certain community. according to Oz Zalof, curator of the hothouse for local art: "The Haifa Museums Incubator encourages creation that is connected to a geographical space and the community that lives in it. It motivates procedural actions in the neighborhoods of the city of Haifa, which intensify the social effect of the act of art and the need for it among the public.

Artists from the Haifa metropolitan area, selected by a professional committee, receive close curatorial support and conceptual and practical training for artistic action in the community space. The participants from among the community take an essential part in the artistic process and bring with them from their personal experience knowledge about the space in which the project treats."

Opening date: 15.10.24
Lock date: 31.3.25
Location: Haifa City Museum - 11 Ben Gurion Ave. Haifa

For more details and to schedule interviews - please contact the Avni Foundation, spokesperson for the Haifa Museums: 050-9956888