Nira Pereg Artist & Educator

..."Pereg’s works highlight the mechanisms of exclusions in order to build complex and layered narratives about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, partly influenced by her own positionality – as an Israeli artist, her nationality gave her the ability to record these documentaries, yet it inevitably reduced her access to certain Muslim spaces. For example, at the end of ABRAHAM ABRAHAM SARAH SARAH, the artist doesn’t have permission to record the Muslim worshippers entering the mosque as she does with the Jewish worshippers.

Yet the artist doesn’t shy away from traumatic events such as the 1994 massacre – and the everyday forms of violence and surveillance endured by Muslim Palestinians. ISHMAEL narrates the disappropriation of the Muslim minaret and records an instance where the sunset Adhan is forbidden by Israeli authorities in response to Jewish settlers’ demand to have their own call to the Mincha prayer at the same time. The title itself draws attention to these ideas – Ishmael was Abraham’s firstborn, who was then cast out and denied his rightful place. This religious narrative charges Pereg’s work with the themes of dispossession and disappropriation that define the experience of living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories."

The Scotsman: Eng : Art reviews: Elizabeth Price | Lara Favaretto | Nira Pereg | Qiu Zhijie By Susan Mansfield:

..."The three distinct shows are highly contrasting. Upstairs, Israeli artist Nira Pereg presents films made in the Cave of the Patriarchs in the Old City of Hebron in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Believed to be the place where Abraham is buried, it is among the most revered religious sites for Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Following a massacre in 1994 in which 29 Muslims were killed, it has been strictly divided into Jewish and Muslim areas, reinforced by bulletproof walls and checkpoints and the presence of the Israel Defence Force.

Pereg’s two-screen film, Abraham Abraham Sarah Sarah, focuses on the occasional days when, for special festivals, each faith gains access to the whole building for a 24-hour period. She films the moments of changeover: carpets being rolled up and stored, religious artifacts placed behind locked screens, Hebrew banners hung to cover up Arabic inscriptions. By homing in on the detail, the practical, the ordinary, she hints at the depths of division which surround this contested space."