Born in 1970 in Kfar Yehezkel, Israel, Yael Bartana received a BFA in photography from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem (1996), and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York (1999). Bartana works in photography, film, video, sound, and installation to explore notions of identity in the context of nationhood, politics, and one’s homeland. Through a blurring of fiction and reality, Bartana’s films invert history in order to question the validity of collective memory and inspire imagined futures. Often referencing the rituals, symbols, and ceremonies of Israeli culture, her films present a visual dialogue on the human condition, underlining society’s potential to resist a politically driven collective identity. Her 2005 film Wild Seeds takes place in a beautiful mountain landscape, where a group of young, leftist activists simulate the game Evacuation of Gilad’s Colony, created in the film as a response to the mandatory withdrawal of Jewish settlers from the occupied territories by Israeli security forces. The activists’ bodies are entangled en masse on the hillside, while a smaller group works at releasing arms and legs from their interlocking counterparts. Heightened by sounds of shouting, laughing, and screaming, the scene quickly turns tense as it is laced with undertones of forced displacement and questions of belonging. Another film, Summer Camp (2006), exposes the ruins of a Palestinian village demolished during the occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967. A meditation on a sense of home, the video shifts to a group of activists gathered to rebuild one of the fallen homes, a mostly symbolic action as similar manifestations of resistance are ultimately destroyed. A Declaration (2006) tells the story of a man in a small wooden boat, as he reaches a tiny island and replaces an installed Israeli flag with an olive tree, both the universal symbol for peace and a symbol of Palestinian nationalism. Bartana is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Nathan Gottesdiener Foundation Israeli Art Prize (2006); Artes Mundi 4, Wales (2010); Häagendaismo, Madrid (2010); and Principal Prize by the International Jury and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen short film festival, Germany (2010). Bartana’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at a range of international venues, including P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center (now MoMA PS1), New York (2003, 2008–09); List Visual Arts Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (2004); Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (2008); Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco (2009); The Jewish Museum, New York (2009); and Venice Biennale (2011). Her work has been presented in group exhibitions worldwide, including those at the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2008, 2010); Tate Modern, London (2008, 2010); Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2009); and Berlin Biennial (2012). Bartana lives and works in Amsterdam and Tel Aviv.