Imagine such a situation: a group of 40-50 people, dressed in white, walking around Bat Yam following some dancers, holding garbage bags and collecting garbage from the street. This is how certain performances begin at the “Diver” Festival 2022, which began last Saturday and will last until July 10. This is the 11th year of the festival, which takes place this year in two main locations – the Bat Yam Museum of Art and the Center for Contemporary Art (CCA) in Tel Aviv. His this time is “Enter the Pool”, and as its name implies – he invites the creators and also the audience to jump into the pool and start swimming.
“This year the festival continues its romance between the world of dance and the world of plastic arts,” explains Edo Feder, the festival’s artistic director for the tenth year. “This is the third year it has been in existence since the outbreak of the plague. In the first year we had a dance troupe journey between cultural institutions, which were then abandoned. “According to him, the art world can become something more ritualistic, communal. Now of course it’s not really a cult, but some kind of daydream. But that the festival will feel like a ceremonial event.”
Truly a band vibe. Photo: Leo Lieberman
What do you mean?
“We see how the world of plastic art becomes on the one hand another branch of capitalism, but on the other hand does not really become a popular culture. It’s not that it can compete with Netflix. So it actually falls between the chairs and loses its power. Our fantasy is about the art world returning To be something that has a ritual interest. “
Not a collective, a band
The festival consists of several types of events: The first is called a “band exhibition”, which is the alternative that Feder wants to offer for a group exhibition. “They use the tools of the live event that takes place throughout the space of the Bat Yam Museum, so you have a collection of choreographers and dancers who appear alongside real sculptures collected by artist Michal Helfman and museum curator Hila Cohen-Schneiderman. “Between life and death. In the background are also the climate crisis, and again, the plague. It is a two-and-a-half hour event, after which there will be an immersive musical event called ‘Musical Temple’. After this experience of between life and death comes a strong and different musical experience.”
Get stuck in the trumpet. Photo: Natasha Shahans
More “band” exhibitions will combine a ceremony created by artists Gilad Ratman and Michal Helfman with a group of dancers, as well as the launch of a new gasoline documenting performances that took place in the public space. The CCA’s shelter will host an exhibition of three young artists who present an expression of a particular generation – one whose ideologies no longer work but are still ingrained in his body (a show that includes men in full nudity). “Instead of the opening of an exhibition being an anemic event of networking and dirt on top of each other, a group of an artist gathers for an event that is trying to start a ceremony,” says Feder, although it would be a shame to underestimate dirt like that. Towards the end of the festival, the festival will take a slightly more optimistic turn, where “a little more healing acts for the discourse” were intentionally inserted at first, according to Feder.
Almost all the events at the festival will be held for the first time. Most of them are the result of a residency that Feder has run with Gilad Ratman, Helfman and Cohen-Schneiderman over the past year at the Bat Yam Museum and the CCA. “The pool is a familiar image, a place you can get to enjoy and drink, but at the same time a bit dangerous and tempting place. This festival is a kind of moment of entering the water.”
Diver Festival, 25.6-10.7, Bat Yam Museum and the Center for Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv (CCA). Tickets for the various events starting at NIS 60