Sense of Belonging

Sense of Belonging explores the history, character, and collective identity of Kibbutz Maoz Haim, where Reut Dafna lives with her family. Developed between 2018 and 2020, the works draw on photographs from the Dafna family albums and those of other kibbutz members, spanning from the 1930s to the present. Through these images, Dafna searches for a connection to the kibbutz’s roots, its people, and a history she inherited through belonging rather than birth. Working with charcoal powder on paper and painting, Dafna transforms archival photographs into images that move between monochrome and intense color, density and emptiness. Familiar scenes become sites of inquiry into memory and disappearance, while personal questions of names, faces, and family histories expand into questions about the collective, cooperation, equality, land, labor, and the changing social structure of the kibbutz. Individual and communal histories intersect throughout the series. Family portraits and scenes of collective life appear alongside images connected to Ehud Dafna, who was killed during the Yom Kippur War, and to traditions such as Climbing a Pillar and Tug of War. The latter becomes a metaphor for the collective itself: individual threads bound together to form a single rope. Rather than reconstructing a complete history, Dafna works with fragments. The gaps and partial memories she encounters become part of the work, reflecting an ongoing search for understanding and for her own place within the community.

Curator: Nurit Tal-Tenne