Loss

This video was part of Zolotko’s longest, six-month installation, Things. Although removed from its initial context in the attic, the work loses nothing of its message. A young man, clearly a little tired and not quite understanding what is happening, whispers rhythmically with appropriate pauses, a text that seems incomprehensible at first.

He reads the First Book of Moses, which lists the lineage of biblical characters since Abraham, how many years each of them lived and their age at the birth of their first son. Every now and then, the young man looks at the paper in front of him, trying to keep track, yet still messes things up. This way, the continuity of the blood and memory line that began with Abraham, whose descendants included Jews as well as Muslims and Christians, remains vague. Along with this, the roots of the reader himself have been symbolically lost. Paraphrasing the sentences from Zolotko’s two previous exhibitions: “I’m here. Not here.”