Ronen Zien, an artist born in the Arab city of Shefa Amr in northern Israel, presents a solo exhibition titled "Walking Into" at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The show features works that explore memory, time, and borders, including a life-size video piece where Zien walks into a faded family photograph from the 1990s. Using chroma key technology, he inserts himself into images from his childhood and historic photographs, such as a 19th-century print by Félix Bonfils. The exhibition draws on Zien's family history within the Druze community, which is divided by the Israel–Syria border, and includes works created in the six months before its February 2025 opening, amid ongoing war tensions.
This exhibition matters because it uses photography and video to examine how memory is shaped by photographs, especially in contexts of separation and conflict. Zien's work addresses universal questions about the relationship between images and recollection, while also highlighting the specific experience of the Druze community, whose families were separated by borders and communicated via "the Shouting Hill." The show was made possible by the Lauren and Mitchell Presser Photography Award for a Young Israeli Artist, underscoring the role of institutional support in fostering emerging talent. It offers a poignant, personal lens on broader geopolitical divides.