Art must, by definition, feed off life. So what does it have to give back? How can art help to improve our lot, engender peace, harmony and all that is good about the human condition? Angelica Dass has some ideas as to how we might go about that. Dass is a Brazilian artist who lives and works in Madrid. She is also in the lineup of this year's “Photo Is:Rael” photography festival, the fifth edition of the annual event, which began yesterday at Midtown in Tel Aviv, and runs through December 2. It is, say the organizers, “the biggest photography event in Israel” and the statistics and quality of the works on offer helped to substantiate that claim. All told, over the 12 days, the program incorporates 25 exhibitions and 200 artists from all over the globe, with 15 social-oriented showings and 25 special events in the festival program. One of the most intriguing exhibitions goes by the teasing title of “Second Nature,” curated by Joshua Simon and featuring the work of 10 artists from Israel and around the world. “Second Nature” is something of an intentional misnomer as it focuses on the unnatural way technology documents, facilitates and dictates much of our lives. “Today,” Simon notes, “machines not only take pictures, they also see – via facial recognition, surveillance, tracking, and mapping technologies, [and this] changes the way we see it [the world].” The celebrated photographers, from Israel, Germany, France, Switzerland and the United States, address the issue of how artificial intelligence impacts on the way they view their milieu and they capture it in their art. Even though pride parades are now a fixture in this country, including in Jerusalem, there are still hotly contested issues relating to the confluence of religious adherence and homosexuality. That is addressed head on in the “I Believe I Am Gay” project brought here by Dutch couple Hadas Itzkovitch and Anya van Lit. The Netherlands was the first country in the world, in 2001, to legalize same-sex marriage, and Itzkovitch and van Lit set out to examine whether “this Dutch spirit of openness and tolerance allows today's religious lesbians and gays the freedom to live in peace with their identity, within the restrictions and conventions of their religion.” To that end they took staged pictures of homosexuals from across a wide ethnic, social and religious spectrum, bringing 37 portraits to this year's “Photo Is:Rael” venture. Identity, in all senses of the term, is the central premise for “Humanae,” an internationally acclaimed project initiated by Dass. The catalyst for the undertaking came from close to home. “In my family, we have all kinds of people with different colors and backgrounds, and with all the differences we have inside the family we see each other as equals. Outside the home things were not like that.” The germ for “Humanae” came into being. “At the beginning I took portraits of my family,” Dass explains. “Then I took pictures of my husband's family. My husband is very pink,” she laughs. Dass has been fascinated for a long time with the importance the world, in general, attaches to physical appearance and, in particular, to skin color. “Since I was very young I never understood why we classify people according to color codes – black and white, for example. We continue to do this. That was the starting point for 'Humanae.'” In a basic definitive way, Dass's project was doomed to failure from the start. How do you convey real colors through virtual representation? We may not all see colors the same on our computers, cell phones or other mobile devices. And color nuances are fundamentally important in “Humanae.” Then again she took steps to ensure we get the multifarious shade message. “That is why I chose to use the Pantone color code,” Dass explains, referring to the widely used color matching system created by the said US company. “Pantone has a huge palette of colors and I am sure what black means in Pantone,” she notes. “And I am sure what white means.” With that as an aesthetic launching pad for her portrait work, Dass says that the terms “black” and “white” are used inaccurately when describing people from different communities around the world. “That's why you have this [Pantone color code] number below the images [in Dass's individual portraits arranged in five-by-six groups],” she says. “Nobody has the color code that Pantone describes as black, or as white. So we have an accurate way of showing that no one can be precisely described as black or white.” Of course, using monochromic terms to describe people offers the advantage of being user-friendly and simplifies the way we consider those around us. Then again, that can also help to fuel racial discrimination. Dass hopes that by, for example, adopting her approach to natural skin tones, we can offset phenomena that feed off an ethnic supremacy approach. “Nobody can be different if we are all different,” she suggests. “The only thing we all have in common is that we are all human beings. I have a lot of things in common with someone who was born in a completely different place in the world, or people from different religions.” It is the opposite, says Dass, of the separatist mentality. “When you want to make friends you try to find similarities. Why focus on the differences? We are all different.” A couple of hugely successful comic movies spring to mind in the “Humanae” context. There is the marvelous scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian when, keen to deter the hordes outside his modest home from crowning him the Messiah, the eponymous unassuming character informs everyone that they are individuals. Naturally, everyone repeats the lesson – in unison. And, of course, Mel Brooks's timeless classic Blazing Saddles has racism, and the ridiculing thereof, at its very core. In view of Dass's racial barrier-breaking ethos, one assumes that bringing her work to one of the world's major conflict regions is of particular importance to her. She made the most of her downtime here to check out the education scene, as she does in various places around the world. “Our teachers continue to teach bad things. That is one of the reasons why I work a lot with schools. I went to a school in Jaffa, with Jewish, Muslim and Christian kids. There were a lot of different backgrounds, trying to cover everyday life, with respect, with quality, seeing each other as equal. I believe that schools are the best place for this work.” Dass also had another reason for appreciating the opportunity to visit Israel for the first time. When word about “Humanae” got out, the response was very positive, and the project was considered to offer benefits and lessons that should be taken aboard by the wider populace. As such, Dass was invited to present a number of TED talks, in Spanish and in English, at various locations. “The person that worked the fastest to translate my main TED talk was the one who translated it into Hebrew,” she notes. “That's amazing for me. That, for me, means that some people here believe in peace.” Dass's website contains abundant information about her activities across the globe, and there is a Testimonies section with responses of various people to “Humanae.” One woman, by the name of Miryam, related that she was raised in a white supremacist family that held Ku Klux Klan beliefs, and that she was brainwashed into abusing other children based on the color of their skin. “'Humanae' is touching a deep chord in me and freeing my soul to be closer to who I was meant to be,” says Miryam in a heartfelt confession. “Humanae” appears to be, gradually, doing the business. It is an ongoing project with Dass creating over 4,000 portraits to date, around 100 of which are currently on display at “Photo Is:Rael.” For more information about the Photo Is:Rael photography festival: www.photographyfestival.co.il/
Angelica Dass challenges racial preconceptions associated with skin color.(photo credit: ANGELICA DASS)