The Root of the Matter

Artists: Rotem Bides, Gal Leshem, Ronit Mirsky, Yael Meiri
Curator: Dr. Yarden Stern

How does the local vegetation reflect the past and future of the surrounding population? Can belonging and ownership be found beneath the surface of the earth, deep within our roots? The exhibition ‘The Root of the Matter’ focuses on the symbolic and political roles of trees, flowers, and wild plants, through works by four artists who explore territorial claims through nature.

Rotem Bides, a visual artist focusing on the study of collective and personal memory, especially in the context of the Holocaust and World War II, will present delicate prints from tree stumps she found in extermination camps across Poland and Germany.

Yael Meiri, a photographer, who combines photography and site-specific installation art, will present works that deal with landscapes of Israeli borders and the queer body as an element that challenges social, political, and cultural boundaries. In the exhibition, their photographs will be displayed, documenting giant reproductions of Israeli flowers inside the restrooms at Ben Gurion Airport.

Gal Leshem is an artist who creates from a research-based and site-specific approach, often engaging with heritage sites, objects, and plants which are intertwined with myths, memory, and folklore. In the exhibition, Gal will present a video work dealing with sacred trees in the country alongside delicate papers made from plants.

In her works, interdisciplinary artist Ronit Mirsky explores the gap between the abstract idea of memory and its concrete translation into matter. In the exhibition she will present a video, etching and a sculpture, that were created in response to the forest fire that occurred in the Jerusalem mountains during April 2025.

Dr. Yarden Stern, the curator of the exhibition, is a curator and researcher, a postdoctoral fellow in the Gender Studies Department at Tel Aviv University, and a lecturer at Sapir College in the Department of Culture – Production and Creation.

The participating artists in the exhibition offer a revised reading of nature — not as a passive or decorative component of the landscape and terrain, but as an active agent in the discourse on belonging, memory, and identity. “The Root of the Matter” positions vegetation as a witness and participant in struggles over territory, history, and narrative in the cultural, historical, and political mosaic of Israel and beyond.