Silent War:
TSIBI GEVA
TALINE TEMIZIAN
ALEX MCGERY
Sad is the man,
Me too am sad.
Sad is my son
and it is possible
that my grandson will be born sad too.
Owf (2), 1974
Poem by Kevork Temizian, translated from the Armenian by Taline Temizian in 2008
The Java Project presents a group exhibition featuring work by the renowned Israeli artist Tsibi Geva along side new works by London-based artist Taline Temizian, and a score by British composer Alex McGery. Also featured in the exhibition is photography by Kristyan Benedict, Amnesty International’s crisis response manager. Silent War, refers to the artists’ historical and ongoing experiences of trauma in relation to war, conflict, and genocide. The artists’ specific histories in connection to the Armenian Genocide and Middle Eastern conflicts are explored in this exhibition. The works included in Silent War employ multi-disciplinary abstraction, distorting familiar objects and forms to explore the tension between emotional and physical reactions to trauma. The aim of the exhibition is to encourage viewers to identify with experiences of war, genocide, violence, occupation, and conflict in order to raise awareness about crimes against humanity. Questions about accountability and justice are considered through an abstracted digital-visual language and investigative methodologies referencing organizations such as Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture that are spearheading initiatives to provide information, solutions, and solace in areas of ongoing crisis.
Tsibi Geva (b. 1951, Israel) is a prominent Israeli interdisciplinary artist whose work has been exhibited international including Tsibi Geva: Archeology of the Present, curated by Hadas Maor for the Israeli Pavilion at the 56th Biennale di Venezia (2015). Born on Kibbutz Ein Shemer, Geva is a first generation descendant of Holocaust survivors. His work often considers the Israel-Palestine conflict from a position of opposition to the Israeli occupation. www.tsibigeva.com
Taline Temizian (b. 1978, USA) is a London-based multidisciplinary artist whose paintings, works on paper, kinetic, moving image, and light works use figurative, conceptual, and process-based strategies and systems to explore the interplay between personal narrative and cultural history. Temizian is a second generation descendant of survivors of the Armenian Genocide. Her childhood was spent in pre-war Syria and post-war Lebanon.
Alex McGery (b. 1987, UK) is a composer who recently graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in London. He has written many pieces in his favored neo-classical style but also works with electronics, creating abstract soundscapes from his own recorded material.
Forensic Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London, is a research agency conducting architectural and media research to build evidence for prosecutors, human rights organisations, and political and environmental justice groups. www.forensic-architecture.org
Photo credit: The photograph Trauma-Settlements was taken in May 2009 in Hebron, occupied West Bank, by Kristyan Benedict, Amnesty International UK’s crisis response manager. More information can be found here: www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde15/3529/2016/en