Ruth Patir, born in 1984 in New York to Israeli parents, was raised in Tel Aviv. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem in 2011 and a Master of Fine Arts in New Genres from Columbia University in New York in 2015. Currently based in Tel Aviv, Patir teaches at Bezalel Academy and Sapir Academic College. Her work spans a diverse array of themes, from deeply personal experiences to broader societal issues, including gender dynamics, technology, and the and the hidden mechanisms of power. Patir is celebrated for her innovative approach to realism, skillfully blending documentary filmmaking with advanced computer graphics to explore new creative possibilities.
Her exhibitions include “My Father in the Cloud” at the CCA in Tel Aviv (2022), “M/otherland” at the OnCurating Project Space in Zurich (2021), and “Love Letters to Ruth” at the Hamidrasha Gallery in Tel Aviv (2018). Her works are held in prestigious institutions, including the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the Pompidou Centre, and KADIST, Paris. Her videos have been shown at MoMA in New York and the Jerusalem Film Festival. In 2018, her film “Sleepers” won the “Video and Experimental Cinema and Video Art Award” at the Jerusalem Film Festival.
Wakapedia’s Ruth Patir and the Israeli Pavilion
In February 2024, the group Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA), a collective of artists and cultural actors advocating for human rights, launched a petition asking the organizers of the Venice Biennale to exclude Israel from its 60th edition due to the “ongoing atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza.” The news caused a media stir and sparked debate within the contemporary art community and major international publications. In response to the petition—signed by nearly 24,000 cultural figures, including American photographer Nan Goldin and British artist Jesse Darling (Turner Prize, 2023)—Patir and the two co-curators of the Israeli pavilion initially defended their freedom to exhibit, emphasizing their disassociation from the actions and communications of the Israeli government. However, just days before the official opening of the Biennale, Patir decided that her exhibition (M)otherland would not open to the public until a ceasefire agreement was reached and the hostages were released.
We at Wakapedia had been following this matter closely and were disappointed to learn that the Israeli pavilion would not open. We were particularly eager to visit the (M)otherland exhibition because it deals with a topic that touches us closely: female fertility and egg freezing. We would have liked to discuss these topics with the artist but were now resigned to the idea that it may never be possible in this context.
But—and this is a common thread in the adventures of Wakapedia—sometimes surprising things happen through chance encounters! In June, we returned to Venice to visit the Holy See pavilion, hosted by the Giudecca women’s prison. Among the various artists on display was our beloved Maurizio Cattelan, and as true groupies, we couldn’t miss his work! Unfortunately, in our enthusiasm and love for… art, we had forgotten to book online. So, there we were, standing in line at the entrance when the Goddess of Destiny, who watches over Wakapedia and turns our mistakes into miracles, stepped in! While waiting in line, we met Udi Edelman, a very kind man who, like us, was weary from standing in the hot sun. Passionate about art (of course!), but also allergic to sunstroke, we suggested a refreshing cocktail at a nearby bar. As we sipped our Bellinis at Harry’s Bar (where the cocktail was invented in 1948 by Giuseppe Cipriani, ed.), we discovered that Udi was actually an acquaintance of the organizers of the Israeli pavilion! Thanks to him, we were able to contact Patir and conduct the following interview.
The moral of the story? Carpe diem and never lose hope!
1. Good morning, Ruth. We are incredibly grateful to be able to interview you and get to know you better. Please tell us about your childhood and how you became an artist. Also, tell us about some events that had a significant impact on your life.
I grew up in Tel Aviv Yafo in the nineties; my parents also grew up in the city. They were both engineers, so I most definitely didn’t get my arts education from home. However, since they worked very hard for long hours, I got to spend my afternoons taking classes at the Tel Aviv Museum. I know they thought it was a pastime. They had no hopes of me becoming an artist —probably on the contrary—but it’s there that I fell in love with art. However, I had a crisis of faith when I was 14. I sat my mom down and told her I wouldn’t be painting anymore! I realized I was only doing it to get her attention. I really did stop and threw away all my materials. I was being very dramatic. Maybe ten years passed when I realized I missed it too much. That’s when I started my BFA at the Bezalel Academy, the academy where I now teach.
2. The theme of this Biennial is “Foreigners Everywhere.” You left Israel for the United States, and as a “foreigner,” you earned a Master’s degree in New Genres at Columbia University. What was this experience like for you? And how did it influence your art?
Before I went to America to study, I was under the assumption that I was a global citizen. I thought my English (which I learned from watching American television in Israel) was so impeccable that I would feel comfortable anywhere. Only in New York did I realize what being a foreigner really feels like. There was this feeling of home that I could not escape. Being an immigrant taught me a great deal of humility and how to be more hard-working. Americans are very hard-working and extremely identity-driven—it’s very inspiring. I think it was there that I learned about sharing vulnerability with an audience. I was very grateful for the opportunity to go abroad, but I also couldn’t wait to return home.
3. You decided not to open the Israeli pavilion at the 2024 Biennale. What factors—both external and personal—influenced your decision?
When I was nominated to be the artist of the Israeli pavilion on September 7th, 2023, I was very excited as I’d been trying to do this project for several years prior. My excitement then transformed in the devastating aftermath of October 7th and the horrific war that followed. As the days went by, we struggled with the idea of acting as if nothing had changed and participated in weekly demonstrations against the war. As nothing seemed certain, my curators, Mira Lapidot and Tamar Margalith, and I decided to check in weekly as we were convinced that our reality would change by April. Unfortunately, the tragedy only worsened. Our decision became clear on the days of the installation, as we felt that we could not act with a clear conscience according to business as usual.
We decided to mount the show, thus not canceling ourselves, but kept it on pause. We hung a modest sign saying, “The artist and curators of the Israeli pavilion will open the exhibition once a ceasefire and hostage release agreement is reached.” I hope that by doing this, we ask the people to wait with us. The exhibition is there and ready but needs the reality of our lives to change for the better. Since then, not much has changed. I am left with some comfort in the fact that when people wish for the pavilion doors to open, they are also praying with me for a ceasefire and for the hostages to return. In this mutual prayer, we join our voices with the protestors of my city in Tel Aviv Yafo in their cry for change.
4. Why did you choose the title (M)otherland and motherhood as your theme? Besides freezing your own eggs, were there any other events that inspired you?
One of the most significant bio-political aspects of the State of Israel is the national obsession with fertility. The curious fact is that Israel is one of the only countries in the world that subsidizes egg freezing. The practice is the state’s official recommendation for unmarried women over 30. So, while in most countries, egg freezing is a costly process reserved for the wealthy, in Israel, it is quite common and talked about a lot. There is an obvious connection between the ideology of populating the state with Jewish children and reproductive rights here.
In 2019, I was diagnosed with BRCA, a genetic mutation that increases my chances of getting reproductive organ cancer at a young age. I was advised to have my reproductive organs removed as a precaution, but first, to take advantage of the fertility treatments that are fully funded by the State. I was and still am single and unsure I want to be a mother, but in Israel, very often, this doesn’t feel like an acceptable decision. Therefore, the title I chose, which highlights the word other in Motherland (the Jewish community commonly uses this term to refer to the State of Israel), seemed very appropriate for this show.
5. You said that your work for the Israeli pavilion was conceived and finalized in the past few months, following the brutal attacks of October 7th and the subsequent war between Israel and Hamas that is still raging. What impact did this situation have on the exhibition?
In this project, I worked with very new technologies that are central to my practice: 3D animation and motion capture suits. I documented myself wearing the suit and then used the recording of my body to breathe life into ancient relics of past cultures in the hopes of drawing a line between the present and the past.
In the aftermath of the war, after the initial shock, I decided to add a few new works to the show. I mounted the main film (M)otherland, a 30-minute docu-animation, on the top floor and added Keening, a short, animated film set in the present day. I wanted the viewer to enter the space in the same emotional state I was in—a state of grief and anger. The new work draws inspiration from the tradition of Keening, which dates back 4,000 years to the Mesopotamian culture and is still present today. Keening is a female practice in which women wail together in grief. It is said that crying and yelling create a nest where grief can lay. The film was also made using motion capture technology to animate fragments of female figurines dating from 600-800 B.C. found in our region. These fragments, broken pieces of whole women, seemed to be representations of the violence that women have suffered and continue to suffer here—a timeless and endless tragedy. And since these figurines predate monotheism, I think of them as women from both sides. Or as we described them, “Forlorn women of a past civilization, the figurines in (M)otherland reach us across time, whole or shattered—remnants of bloodshed and war that evoke the entwined experience of womanhood, rupture, and collective mourning.”
6. As a woman who froze her eggs, is there a message you want to convey to other women? Has egg freezing changed you in any way?
I would just say that I think we need to talk about it. Traditionally, and still today, most scientific advances related to childbirth have been invented for women but don’t consider women’s health. Take the pill, a revolution for women’s rights, but also a tool that gives them the sole responsibility for contraception. Call it feminism 101. Nowadays, we could say that the equivalent of the right to contraception 50 years ago is the right to fertility preservation, i.e., egg freezing. On the one hand, this allows women with health issues to conceive, which is amazing, and it enables women to postpone their fertility window so that they can further advance their careers—all supposedly good things. This device essentially allows women to be more like men instead of allowing them to think of motherhood as a type of work valued by society. Instead of giving women more options, egg freezing adds pressure to have children and be successful, which still locks them into a patriarchal order.
Edited by: Kassandra Frua De Angeli
