In the past year, artist Achinoam Mendelson moved from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, from one rented apartment to another. Everything was convenient: pleasant neighborhoods, attractive neighbors, yet both apartments carried the same address: 20 Gaza Street.
In her new performance Home Shit Home, she explores the gap between the fantasy of immigration and the impossibility of tearing a home away from a person.
Achinoam performs alongside Isaac Chocron and Erez Meyuhass. Together, they place multiple narratives, homes, and languages on stage simultaneously, as a fragmented consciousness continuously flows between them. This is a pendulum movement of dreams and struggles, layered with different languages, colors, images, and sounds.
The house becomes the fourth character in the performance. The three performers impose upon it their imaginations, hopes, and disappointments, and it transforms according to their needs. At one moment it is the home that was left behind, at another it is a dream of elsewhere. A sense of belonging destabilizes as the three wander from their own story into existence, functioning within someone else’s tale.
Achinoam Mendelson is a multidisciplinary artist, director, musician, and performer. She creates and curates theatre, video, and public-space works, while also collaborating with other artists as an actor, performer, musician, and artistic consultant. Her works have been presented at HaZira Theatre, Hanut Theatre , HaBayit Theatre, and the Jerusalem Arts Festival. She holds a B.A. in Humanities from the Shalem Academic Center and is a graduate of the School of Visual Theatre. She has curated cultural events in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
She created the play I Love You Special, part of the HaZira Theatre repertoire, which won Best Performance and Best Direction at the 2022 Acco International Fringe Theatre Festival.
Show duration: About 60 minutes. In the show, smoking is used on stage (nicotine-free cigarettes from a non-addictive herbal mixture)
