"Mobile Archive" - Israeli video art in St Petersburg

The Creative Association of Curators TOK is pleased to introduce to the Russian audience the famous collection of Israeli and international video art gathered by the Israeli Center for Digital Art. The Center is one of the leading institutions of contemporary art in Israel famous for its projects, exhibtions, educational events and residency program. 

The Mobile Archive is a traveling collection of Israeli video art that belongs to the Israeli Center for Digital Art and contains more than 2500 titles. The archive includes video art, sound art, film, and documentation of performances and installations by Israeli and international artists in the field of media art. Many of the works are linked thematically through questions of identity, militarism, and nationalism, as well as other sociopolitical issues relevant to the region.

The idea of the Mobile Archive surfaced during several conversations on the idea of bringing the Israeli Center for Digital Art’s Video Archive to the Kunstverein in Hamburg. The question was how it could function out of its original context – how to make the archive dynamic and valuable to the local audiences at both ends. Starting in Hamburg in 2007, the Mobile Archive began its  journey and has since been represented as an independent project as well as a part of various art events at more than 20 venues including Hamburg Kunstwerein, WYSPA Institute of Art in Gdansk, Art in General in New York, Centro Da Ciltura Judaica in Sao Paulo and many others. In Russia, where the Mobile Archive arrives for the first time, it is curated by the Creative Association of Curators TOK (St Petersburg).

One of the main principles of the Mobile Archive is its accessibility and openness to the public at large: the archive is presented in a video library format, where each visitor will be able to choose freely from hundreds of existing video works, and view the selected pieces. Thus, the Mobile Archive raises the issue of the active role of the audience as well as touches upon the important question of storing and passing knowledge in the society today, including the mission of archives in these processes. 

Even though Israeli artists working with video are widely known throughout the world, so far they haven’t had a massive exposure in Russia. By bringing the Mobile Archive to St Petersburg TOK offers the Russian audience with a unique opportunity to browse through one of the world’s top collections of Israeli video art and see works by such internationally acclaimed Israeli artists as Sigalit Landau, Yael Bartana, Roee Rosen, Guy Ben Ner and many others.  

Mobile Archive will be located at PRO ARTE Foundation, the leading institution in contemporary art in St Petersburg that organizes about 250 art events a year including festivals, exhibitions and educational events and a school for young visual artists from April 7th to April 30th, 2014

On the opening night there will be conducted an artist talk with Dor Guez.