HOMESICK
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The term “homesick” is used across languages to describe a pain or a longing for a distant home. These days, the term is more relevant than ever – capturing the complex relationship many have with the idea of home, alongside a sense of estrangement from it.

The exhibition title expresses a fundamental duality: the longing to return home versus the desire – or necessity – to flee it. In the current Israeli reality, this duality is no longer theoretical. Thousands have been uprooted from their homes, others fear returning. What was once a safe, familiar space – meant to offer shelter, privacy and identity – has become an arena of instability and anxiety. When the boundary between inside and outside is breached, the idea of home as sanctuary begins to collapse. And when the very concept of “home” itself is questioned, what does it mean to be homesick? And for what?

The perception that home is an experience that shapes our personal and collective identity, both consciously and unconsciously, relies on the understanding that people have a deep relationship with their place of residence. The home embodies signs, dreams, ideals, and aspirations that stay with us even when we’ve left them behind.

The exhibition brings together new works and earlier ones, that reflect the layered relationship with the place called home. Lihi Turjeman, in an act of preservation, peels and transfers walls from a house that no longer exists. Marion Baruch creates sculptures from textile remnants of the fashion industry, using emptiness to evoke presence, absence, and memory. Sharon Yaari offers an intimate and reframed view of the familiar. Guy Ben Ner leaves home for a deserted island – in a video work filmed in his kitchen. And in Moshe Kupferman’s painting, layers of paint and erasures hint at memories and impressions that refuse to fade. Spanning a range of mediums, the works illuminate the constant tension between belonging and alienation in a world where the meaning of home – and the longing for it – is constantly shifting.