Avshalom Halutz in Haaretz: ‘Israeli artist and political activist Rachel Hagigi remembers exactly what she was doing in September 2023. "I was sitting at home embroidering a horse for a cushion. Just a horse." It was the first time she had embroidered in about ten years. But soon the act of embroidery would move from horses onto very different subjects. October 7 happened, and shortly afterward the devastation in Gaza began. "At first I avoided looking at images of atrocities, both from October 7 and from Gaza. I thought it would scar me. They were snuff films, and I didn't want to participate in that culture."’
And: ‘Hagigi began collecting photos of Gaza taken by photojournalists, looking for ways to translate them into embroidery.’
Embroidery, the detour that allows us to see and not see other people’s suffering.
‘What a beautiful tablecloth!’
‘It depicts the bombing of January 12.’
(a sf 2164)
