The Israel Trail: Procession

The Israel Trail: Procession is a large-scale joint project by artists Meirav Heiman and Ayelet Carmi, depicting a group journey along the National Israel Trail. The identity of the participants—possibly nomads, possibly survivors or refugees—is unclear since they carry no markers of affiliation or time. They advance using odd devices that prevent their feet from touching the ground, generating a peculiar, alienating movement experience between the hiker and the land. Walking becomes a strenuous acrobatic choreography alluding to either circus processions or pilgrimages wearing torture apparatuses to test their faith.

The project explores the charged relationship with the land through the contemporary rite of passage of walking the National Israel Trail, a quest deeply rooted in the Zionist ethos of conquering the land by foot. The morbid-ritual procession only externalizes the unstable, elusive, extremist dimension of the ritual. The journey, which involves great physical effort, conjures up masculine and military initiation rites of physical and mental stamina. Here, however, the convoy consists mainly of differently-aged women who resemble priestesses or warriors taking part in a protest march.