Lost Homes
Hila Laviv
2025
An artist’s book that traces the pursuit of lost historical and private homes, exploring the possibility of reconstructing a vanished world through a radical use of archival materials. and raises questions of identity, belonging, homeland, and loss.
Designed by Noa Schwartz and accompanied by texts by Yaara Shehori and Dana Schweppe, the book is structured as a sculptural-architectural system: inside the hardcover, a contrastingly smaller format is revealed. Each double spread conceals a tiny book—already opened or marked by perforations—inviting a layered, tactile experience of reading.
Each chapter corresponds to an exhibition related to a lost homr from the family history of the artist. The book brings together Laviv’s exhibitions from 2016 to 2024, presented in Israel, Germany, and Sweden, along with the full archive of memory-objects, research, and inspiration surrounding them. All are reassembled in the book into a new collage.
The houses are both real and imaginary. Some will outlive us all, others have burned down or simply disappeared. Within each one, something Unheimlich lingers.
- Design: Noa Schwartz
- Editing: Einat Adi
- Texts: Yaara Shehori, Dana Schweppe
- Translation: Eint Adi (English), Reem Ghanayem (Arabic)
- Language editing: Einat Adi
- Copies: 300
- Pages: 158
- Type of binding: Sewn hardcover, fabric covered board
- Dimensions (cm): 25.5x20 / 21x16
- Reproductions: Torbjörn Allard, Lena Gomon, Youval Hai, Dana Lev Levnat, Tal Nisim, Henning Rogge, Revital Topiol
- Printing: A. R. Printing Ltd.
- Binding: A. R. Printing Ltd.
- Type of printing: Offset lithography
- Publication: Asia Publishers
- Place of publication: Israel
- Supported by: Lottery Council for Culture & Arts
- Book photography: Leafing Magazine
- ISBN: 050000002399
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Hila Laviv (b. 1975), lives and works in Tel Aviv-Jaffa. She holds a BFA from the Beit Berl College, Faculty of the Arts, and an MFA from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem. Using archival materials and materials that characterize handicrafts, Laviv’s works deal with family mythologies and questions of reconstruction and rebuilding of disappearing worlds. She works in a number of mediums including video, collage and large-scale installations. In 2021, Laviv presented a solo exhibition at the Mishkan Museum of Art, Ein Harod.
