Slide Images

01 – Dust, 2009 (installation shot)

02 - The Guardian, 2009 (installation shot)

03 - Amzrou Synagogue Interior, Series II, No. 1 (installation shot 1)

04 - Amzrou Synagogue Interior, Series II, No. 1 (installation shot 2)

05 - Amzrou Synagogue Interior, Series II, No. 1 (installation shot 3)

06 - Morning, 2009 (installation shot)

07 - Morning Series, 2009 / Sefer No. 65, 2012 - 2013 / Amzrou Series I, 2013

Amzrou / Morocco, 2013
Joyce Yahouda Gallery, Montreal, Quebec

Installation views from the exhibition titled Amzrou/Morocco at the Joyce Yahouda Gallery, Montreal between August 22 and October 5, 2013. “This sense of absence pervades the videos Safdie shot in the […] abandoned synagogue of Amzrou, which she sees as a poetic evocation of a place which marks the dispersion of a society from its home.” “This series manages to pay homage to an absent community without romanticizing it. On one hand the videos are direct about what remains – almost nothing, just dust in a once vibrant place […]. However, by presenting the dust as spirit and by giving it breath, Safdie makes clear that both individuals and communities have a felt presence that often can outlive their corporeal presence. […] Transformation implies not only change, but continuity; whatever transforms exists both before and after, just altered.” Excerpts from Eric Lewis, The Video Art of Sylvia Safdie, McGill – Queen‟s University Press, 2013, p. 66, 70.