Relics

Orli Perel Nir’s exhibition consists of eight portraits, photographed in an old metal factory in down-town Haifa. The photographs reveal an extraordinary, dark and dramatic world. Nothing in the factory suggests it as being contemporary.

Orli Perel Nir’s exhibition consists of eight portraits, photographed in an old metal factory in down-town Haifa. The photographs reveal an extraordinary, dark and dramatic world. Nothing in the factory suggests it as being contemporary. The workers appear as ghosts of factory workers from another era, or as relics carrying the traces of time deep in their existences, in their skins and in their gazes. These photographs convey an illusion. At first they appear to speak the language of direct photography, as the workers are posed somewhat believably in front of the camera. However, the harder we look, we notice the fact that each image consists of a number of focal points which are not on the same plane, and we understand we are not confronted with direct photography after all.
The photographs offer a glimpse into a different world, which exists in our reality, yet belongs to a different time or place. The reality we think we know ceases to exist, and indeed, what is this reality?