Ruth Patir - Motherland

Ruth Patir is a new media artist based in Tel Aviv who integrates documentary storytelling with computer-generated imagery. Her work is often grounded in her own biography, gradually opening up to address larger societal issues, such as the politics of gender, technology, and the hidden mechanisms of power. ‘Motherland’ accompanies her exhibition at the 2024 Venice Biennale of Art, which the artist refused to open until a ceasefire agreement happens. The work is a multipart video installation documenting her egg-freezing odyssey, conceived as a 3D animation where she recasts herself as an ancient “fertility figurine”. The publication includes texts by curators Mira Lapidot and Tamar Margalit, Noam Gal, and Keren Goldberg, plus a dialogue between the artist and Eva Illouz. This book was produced in the months following the terror attacks of October 7 and the devastating Hamas-Israel war, in the depths of horror and despair. Patir dedicates it to all the women who lost their lives in this vicious war -both Israeli and Palestinian- and to those who were left to pick up the pieces. And reiterates the steadfast belief in two states, living in peace. In the polemics following the refusal to open the pavillion, the artist stated "As an artist and educator, I firmly object to cultural boycott, but I have a significant difficulty in presenting a project that speaks about the vulnerability of life in a time of unfathomed disregard for it”.