"Touching the Bare Air": An Exhibition Between the Frontline and Absence

@Shira Raziel "Guest"

A new exhibition of photography and writing titled “Touching the Bare Air” will open on April 16 at the Bifnocho cultural space in Tel Aviv. It brings together the works of Roy Kasher, a photographer and reservist in the Israeli army, and Shira Raziel, an artist and the widow of Yedidia Raziel, who fell while defending Kibbutz Kerem Shalom. Through their intersecting perspectives, the two artists explore the intimate experience of war, suspended between the battlefield and the absence left behind at home.

Two personal narratives emerging from the same conflict meet here. One arises from the ruins of Gaza and from uniforms worn thin and covered in dust; the other takes shape in the void left by the loss of a husband and father.

A photographer, musician, and reserve soldier, Roy Kasher documents the war from within. His images and texts describe the exhausting reality of combat, the friction between skin and metal, the dizzying distance between home and the battlefield, and the quiet solitude that accompanies these constant transitions. In the dust and soot, he captures simple moments: the routines of reserve rotations, suspended instants of stillness, and the chasm that opens between civilian life and the reality of the front.

@Shira Raziel, "Sons"

In contrast to this gaze directed toward combat, Shira Raziel presents a body of work marked by great fragility. A mother of three and a member of Kibbutz Kerem Shalom, she exhibits a series composed of fragmented words and delicate photographs of everyday life. Through her lens, she captures nearly imperceptible moments suspended between memory and reality. Her deeply intimate texts evoke the man and the home that are no longer there, the roots and the uprooting, as well as the persistent presence of the absent in life after the tragedy of October 7.

@Roy Kasher "Identity"

Among the works on display is “Identity,” by Roy Kasher, which explores the moment when the uniform and military gear become a second skin. In the image, a soldier lifts his equipment in a gesture suspended between rest and departure for a mission. The bulletproof vest covers his face and reshapes his identity: he becomes a soldier, yet at the same time loses his features, almost erased behind the gear.

@Roy Kasher, "Cracks of light"

In “Cracks of Light,” a soldier walks through the sand, bent under the weight of tireness. The tracks left by military vehicles scar the ground like wounds, emphasizing the fragility of human movement in contrast to the heavy marks of war.

On Shira Raziel’s side, the work “Looking Toward the Sky” transforms an ordinary scene into an almost metaphysical experience. A muddy puddle becomes a window onto another place—perhaps even another time. The viewer does not see the tree itself, only its reflection trapped in the water. The gaze is directed downward, toward the damp earth, and it is precisely there that the fragile crown of the tree appears. The work invites the viewer to inhabit absence and suggests that sometimes the only way to touch what has disappeared is to contemplate its reflection in the ripples of water.

The camera becomes a transparent barrier between the artists and the world, an attempt to slow down time and give space to the tiny details of an immense story. Writing, in turn, completes what the image cannot reveal.

The exhibition will be on view at 9 Itamar Ben-Avi Street, Tel Aviv, from April 16 to May 4. The opening reception will take place on April 16 at 7:00 PM.

Caroline Haïat