Ronit Yanizki - Victory Image

The exhibition includes a display of graffiti on the studio's walls, with quotes, sentences, slogans, clichés and names that were mentioned during Operation Protective Edge. These reminders that Yanizki chose to r  ecord on her studio walls create a textual weave that is laid out before the viewer, like an oriental rug, confronting and confirming the reality of our lives here.

The tapestry of words and sentences that Yanizki chose to use (which she collected from television and the Internet) were placed on the studio walls, like pieces in a giant puzzle, and only by putting them all together is the whole picture clarified to the viewer. Yanizki speaks of the absurdity of the war: the destruction, the pain and the suffering it causes. Yanizki claims that a unique language created during a war, one the media is responsible for, and uses terms and sentences to describe and define the absurd situation we are in. It is a manipulative language, utilizing words and combinations of sentences that give then new and distorted significance when describing the war and its battles, as well as the destruction and the damage they caused. She uses words such as "a tense quiet "the military's clock", "emergency procedure", "Zionist opposition", "citizens under fire", "the explosions' reverberations", "false alarm", "traitors", "vehicular evacuation", "friendly fire", "permitted to be released", "the nation's course", "the shell-shocked", and more.

Yanizki notes, from her perspective, the exhibition is a post-traumatic response to the situation she found herself in during the war when she would rush to a shelter, scared and terrified, every time she heard the siren. She spent many hours in front of the television and the Internet so she would be updated of events taking place, and she made sure not to miss any piece of information. This also helped her think about the process in its entirety, a process she was a part of - against her will, as a civilian and private citizen in the country. She felt exposed and drawn into government manipulation, and its desire to create "facts on the ground" that will force the other side to accept its terms and conditions.

Yanizki's choice to use a graffiti format on the wall for creating her presentation is for her, a response of defiance, like the intrusion of street artists into the public space, painting their political protests and criticism on walls in the dead of night. This creates art that is also considered protest art - "forbidden art".

From Amitai Tabib’s article written for the exhibition:
"The term "Victory Image" was coined into public Israeli discourse following the Second Lebanon War. But even beforehand, many images were collected into the general psyche which symbolized an absolute victory over the enemy, among them the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima, photographed by Joe Rosenthal, and the raising of the Russian flag over the Reichstag building, photographed by Yevgeny Khaldei at the end of the Second World War. In Israel, similar comparisons are the raising of the flag in Um Rash Rash (Eilat), photographed by Micha Peri and the generals Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin and Uzi Narkis entering the Lions Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem during the Six-Day War, photographed by Ilan Brunner".

"The pair of these words (Victory Image) was on my lips during all of 'Protective Edge', when both sides involved combat were most interested in achieving a picture that will prove their victory. In an era when almost every man, woman and child has a camera - this type of picture was never taken. The "victory" Image was achieved by words branded into public consciousness that only served those who uttered them, both for victory and defeat".

"On the gallery walls, Ronit Yanizki records words, sentences, and names - all of them together, and all of them alone, to represent the discourse that was very common during the war. This is a process that simulates the walls of victory that served as a platform for the immortalizing conquests and victories in ancient history, or the walls used by street artists proudly displaying their political and social art, in current times. Yanizki does not go out to the public space; privately, within her own four walls she presents her political platform. The collection of words, the writings and the order in which they appear, create a kind of woven wall tapestry, not only telling the story of the war, but also the artist's opinion of its imprudence."
(Taken from the article written by Tali Amitai-Tabib for the exhibition)