Sharon Ya’ari (born in Israel, 1966), looks closely at the remains of lost histories and considers whether the photograph has the capacity to reconstruct and contend with them.

For Ya’ari, photography as a medium is uniquely able to cope with the complex interrelations of imagination, historical knowledge, and the sociopolitical present. The “local” in his work is always a hybrid creature — a mosaic equally composed of facts on the ground, and of unfulfilled, conflicting desires, failures, and mistakes. A place caught in a perpetual state of development as well as decay and destruction. Ya’ari’s photography identifies the traces of the constant tension that exists between simple actions in everyday life and the ideologies that guide them.

The series 500 m Radius was photographed over a period of several months in 2005, all within a 500-meter radius of my home in central Tel Aviv. Accumulations: footpaths, entry ways into buildings, backyards, stairwells, and shared gardens appear stripped from the halo that ordinarily accompanies aesthetic appreciation of elements of the so-called “international style” of architecture. The immediate everyday environment takes on the character of an archeological site. 

The photographic journey was taken early every morning with a digital camera and a baby, several months old, thus allowing mother to sleep. The baby dictated not only when the journey started but also its duration and the 500m radius. It also provided an alibi for wandering with a camera in the early morning hours among private residences in central Tel Aviv.