If you had one shot, do you think you could capture the experience of female singlehood?
In her first solo photography series, Shilat Mizrahi, renowned Israeli fashion photographer and visual artist, does exactly that, through the brilliant combination of 28 single women, locations that recall human origins, and a sharp eye on the lens. The series is currently on display at the Villa Gallery for Contemporary Art at The Emunah Faculty of Arts & Design in Jerusalem.
Wars are nothing new, which means that as a collective, we have certain blueprints, certain social constructs that we automatically lean on to make some sense of the chaos: soldiers as national heroes; grassroots civil organizations; donation boxes’ ribbons on our hands and cars; flags on our windows.
One of those constructs is of soldiers going off to war and leaving their wives and partners performing a two-man job in an extremely challenging climate and feeling ignored and invisible in public discourse. As the months have dragged on, more attention has been called to this, but it barely scratches the surface.
A different group, though, has been left completely in the dark: single women. To take on the monumental task of changing that, Mizrahi directed 28 women (aged 25-45) in her vision in an effort to capture their entire experience: the duality of loneliness with sisterhood and camaraderie; the vulnerability of it all; the longing; the taboo nature of the topic; and the lack of communal awareness – all in photographs that touch the soul.
Mizrahi, 38, is a lecturer of digital arts at Emunah – herself an alumna of the Jewish art institution. She is also currently single, which gave her both the access and the personal touch necessary to be a voice to the complex, nuanced experience.
The exhibition, “Miberesheet” (From the Beginning), includes photographs, blocks of text, and two films. The texts, scattered among the massive frames, were written by Mizrahi herself or by the women, some of whom only agreed to participate on condition of anonymity.
The high ceilings and wide rooms are the perfect place, giving each piece the space to stand on its own. Once the doors open, the first frame to come into view is one of 10 women, standing on a beach right where the sand meets the sea. Behind them are rough, jagged rocks, taking up most of the frame, as the sky peeks out from behind.
Gedor Beach was taken on the first day of shooting, Mizrahi said, meaning that the women didn’t know each other at all. “I told them where to stand, stood back, raised my gaze, and realized what was in front of me.” She snapped the photo. “It was extremely powerful,” she said.
It captures the idea of “together and apart,” “that everyone truly is experiencing this alone, but that there is power in coming together,” she explained. In the photo, each woman is slightly distinctive, each gaze tells you something else, but they are all standing together, facing the same direction.
Up to that point, Mizrahi said, she hadn’t quite believed in the empowering effect this could have – until she snapped the photo.
THE EXPERIENCE of walking into the art gallery and seeing the photo from afar means that the individual women don’t come into view right away. As you get closer and the vision clears, you truly see them: what they are wearing, the expressions on their faces, how they have their hair. That’s when it hits.
Throughout the series, the women are either on the ground or in water, “symbolizing their roots in nature, in groundedness, in stability, in intuition, connected to sources of life.” Even the colors of their clothes “blend into nature.”
Once she found her participants, Mizrahi began the shoots in July 2023, completing two of them before Oct. 7.
With the chaos that ensued, the project went on hold, while in the dating world several things occurred at the same time: Couples jumped into relationships; others split up; and for those looking to find a partner, the trauma of war in all its iterations became dead weight, impossible to ignore. After a number of weeks, a few of the women who participated reached out to Mizrahi, pressing her to resume the project.
“I thought, ‘Why? Who would this even be interesting to?’ They told me, ‘Us. We need to be doing this.’ I wasn’t ready yet, but I picked myself up and got back to work.”
To say that dating is hard is an understatement. A turbulent wave of emotions follows every connection: the initial interaction, the buildup of anticipation, the high of a good connection, the eventual problems that arise, and the gut punch when it ends. This cycle is a demanding one, draining from one to the next.
“We immediately ask: ‘What is wrong with us? Why haven’t we found someone yet?’ There is an immense level of criticism. No one sits and thinks, ‘Wait a minute, what are these women actually experiencing? How much does going on dozens of dates fracture the soul?”
What was the trigger for the project?
“A breakup. I thought I found someone who was my home, and when it ended, all that stability, the dreams of the future, got upended.
“Then the holidays began; they hadn’t been difficult for me, yet suddenly they were. You are surrounded by family who have the best intentions, and it comes from a good place, but they can ask questions that stab you right at the core, where you are already so vulnerable: ‘What’s wrong with you? But you’re perfect.’ For me, it was like a slap in the face because I thought I had found that thing, and I hadn’t. So, it was back to the drawing board.”
“There is a lot of criticism, both expressed and disguised, that can come from people with very good intentions, but it can hurt. Sentences like ‘You haven’t found someone yet because you’re picky, right?’ Or ‘Are you sure you aren’t judging too quickly?’ And you have to ask yourself: ‘Who gives anyone the authority to make those kinds of judgments? Step into my shoes for a second, see what it’s like,’” she said.
The impetus for the project was for “people to get exposed to what is beneath the surface, to the deeper experience of what this is like. This is not to discount women who are happy in their singlehood – that’s just not what this experience is.”
Dr. Efrat Grossman, director of The Emunah Academic College of Arts & Design in Jerusalem, herself an alumna of the institution, added that “this topic is one that is explored by many female students at Emunah, the only religious college in Israel. The school of Israeli religious art was born here, and it is leading in faculties and programs that simply don’t exist for the sector otherwise.
“This exhibition is something that really captures the essence of Emunah; not because it is singular to religious women but because it is insistent in its activism. It demands the truth.”
The college is nestled under the Emunah organization, an umbrella fund that encourages female involvement and development in society, particularly from Religious Zionist circles.
The fact that this is a topic explored by many female students at Emunah only attests to its relevance.
“We teach our students to constantly ask in their art, ‘What is it I have to say? What story am I telling that is going to change people?’ The revolutionary thing is that this comes in the form of art. Everyone is familiar with the phenomenon of singles, but this makes it hit in a different way – the exposure and the experience of pushing people to feel and to understand through art. If art can do that, then that’s what we’re here for,” said Grossman.
On the front wall of the left-hand room hangs a drone photo of women encircling a tree, titled Bitronot Ruhama. Unlike the rest of the photos, the subjects face away from the camera, and due to the distance their bodies look quite small and far away. The landscape takes up most of the frame, with the tree right at the center, at eye level.
Mizrahi explained, “There is a duality here. They are a group, united against the elements, against this tree, but they also stand there in their individuality still.” Next to the print is a block of text, prose, which references Shel Silverstein’s children’s book The Giving Tree, telling the story of an apple tree and a boy. The tree gives all it can to the boy all his life, even until the very end. It is a story of graciousness and sacrifice but also raises questions about the price of that sacrifice.
“I saw a lot of myself in that, giving and giving until there was nothing left for me,” Mizrahi said.
The photo also captures a vast space, something Mizrahi said is part of the desire “to find and create a space for myself to be in.”
A side room shows drone footage of the women standing around the tree as “Avinu Malkenu” plays in the background “as a sort of prayer,” Mizrahi said. “So many women told me, ‘I’m doing what I can; it’s up to God.’”
In the right-hand room, off the main gallery space, hangs Dor Beach, a photo showcasing six women wearing three variants of colors, standing in the ocean, staring at a chair as it goes up in flames.
What is the chair doing here?
“It symbolizes all the unknown, all the questions. The time that is slipping between your fingers, the dream that is disintegrating. At the same time, the girls stare directly at the chair, straight ahead, focused, not knowing how this journey is going to end, yet ready for anything. Will someone fill that space? Or is the experience of being alone critical to it all? It is the feeling of, ‘I know what I want; I don’t know what I’m going to get,’” Mizrahi explained.
Grossman drew attention to the fire burning on the water itself, how it literally heats it, changing the colors in the reflection, “all of these dualities working together, fire and water, hope and crushing disappointment; the colors.”
Across from that is a print that is actually on the ground, so that the viewer must look down to see it, imitating the photographer: Bitronot Ruhama II shows women curled up in a fetal position on the ground, the yellow earth surrounding them.
“This one is about motherhood. I remember telling them to only stay in the frame if they would categorize themselves as interested in motherhood. Some left the frame. I asked them to lie down, to channel a connection to the earth, to the desire for life.”
Another photograph, Beit Guvrin, also in the left-hand gallery room, shows nine women huddled together on a stone inside an open cave. “We called it ‘The Female Rock,’” said Mizrahi, a combination of individual strength and strong community foundations.
The last photo Mizrahi took for the exhibition hangs in the main hall, on the left-hand side. Dead Sea portrays 10 women standing on salt islands in the Dead Sea. They are at eye level with the camera, the sky rumbles softly above, contrasting with the blue of the sea below; they are looking straight ahead. There is something striking in the photo, perhaps even a little harsh, but the smoothness and flexibility of the water counter that.
An accompanying film shows drone footage over the women as Akiva’s “K’mo She’at” (“As You Are”) plays in the background.
Why did you choose the film materials specifically for this photo?
“The water, the ground, actually functions here as a mirror. So many people say, ‘I wish you could see yourself the way I see you.’ It is the water that flips that perspective,” Mizrahi said.
The exhibition is on display in Jerusalem at the Villa Gallery for Contemporary Art at the Emunah Faculty of Arts & Design, 104 Bethlehem Rd., and will run until May 2. Sun.-Thu., 9 a.m.-7 p.m. The exhibit was curated by Judith Anis and Adi Angel.
