The Lightworkers –

The image of the swamp, which is recurrent – physically as well as metaphysically – in Sasportas’ work, came to her when she was on a train where a woman sitting opposite her was reading a newspaper with a picture of a swamp. The image attracted her in a special way, which Sasportas attributes to the sensitivity one develops as an artist: “You start putting more and more attention to this magnetism – like what kind of images attract your attention and why?” Sasportas began to research the image, which finally brought her to the swamp in question. In order to be able to gain access to it, however, she had to pretend to be a scientist, which finally allowed her to explore its many layers: “It felt for me like the perfect visual representation of something that was not fully integrated in the subconscious field. And you have the possibility to encounter this on a visual level.”

“You’re in and out at the same time.” Sasportas’ method is to try to create a space in which you activate your intuitive part as well as your analytical part, and the part that contemplates as well as the part that participates: “You create kind of a broken language.” Sasportas explains that she works on a “vertical line” as well as on a “horizontal line”. The horizontal line is what can be seen, whereas the vertical represents going down into your subconsciousness: “It’s kind of an elevator of consciousness that can take you down to your dream area. To all the areas that you cannot really control.”

( Interview by Kasper Bech Dyg at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in April 2015).

 

About the author:

Yehudit Sasportas was born in Ashdod in 1969. In her early works, for example, «Cradle» (1991) and «Trash Can Scale» (1996), she created three-dimensional structures based on images of household objects. Her work, «The Carpenter and the Seamstress» (2000), focuses on the architectural project of her parents apartment in housing project in Ashdod. In it she created a large installation from dimensions that combined sculpture and drawing. In the 2000s, her works began to include images from nature, mainly forests and swamps, and concrete and metaphorical dimensions. In addition, she began to work in the field of video. In 2007, she was the representative of Israel in The Guardians of the Threshold, 52 which took place at the Venice Biennale, Italy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yehudit_Sasportas