"Snow in the Orchard", 2024, mixed media

In this installation, the symbolic orange grove of Jaffa, adjacent to the tower of the Russian Orthodox Church, “sheds its skin” and transforms into a snowy fir forest — a place from another time, another world. Twenty-one orange trees, representing Jaffa’s local landscape, are draped in partially white-painted military camouflage nets. Each tree wears a pointed “hat,” evoking both the triangular church tower and the gnome hats from Uzi Hitman's children's song:

In the land of the gnomes, there’s noise and commotion
The army marches in uniform, off to war...
And leading the battalion is Commander Thumbelina...

Here, the church tower becomes the commanding Thumbelina, and the trees — his gnome-soldiers standing at attention. The result is a surreal tableau hovering between innocence and threat, childhood and surveillance.

The title "Snow in the Orchard" alludes to the Kabbalistic tale “Four Entered the Orchard” (from the Zohar), a story about entering mystical realms — anyone can enter, but not everyone knows how to return. The danger lies not in what is seen, but in what is hidden. On a psychological level, the work explores the dynamic between the conscious and subconscious, and the tension in their entanglement.

The orange grove — a memory from a Jaffa family’s past — becomes here an enchanted, snowy forest reminiscent of landscapes from my birthplace, Ukraine. The installation merges narratives: a Kabbalistic parable, a Ukrainian folk tale, and the rooted scenery of Jaffa. It navigates a space where identities are blended — and where identities are mixed, emotions are mixed too. Belonging and alienation coexist, creating a space of internal contradiction.

The work is in dialogue with Dani Karavan’s installation “Orchard”. While Karavan’s piece is firmly rooted in Israeli local identity, "Snow in the Orchard" reflects reality through the lens of a layered, multicultural identity. It offers a personal interpretation of a familiar landscape seen through the eyes of otherness, producing a deliberately surreal image — both rooted and estranged, beautiful and unsettling.