1,2,3 herring

1,2,3. Herring from shahar marcus on Vimeo.

“1,2,3,Herring” “1,2,3,Herring” video work, naming after the famous children game, presents the artist playing in front of three cardboard figure, dressed in a gray uniform, which looks like a uniform of World War II soldier or a pioneer’s uniform. The scene takes place on a reconstruction war site in Israel, of the 1948 war between Egypt and Israel, where flat iron figures of Egyptian soldiers are planted in the battlefield. In the video the artist is fighting against himself while playing popular children game 1,2,3 herring. In this game the participants run up whenever the seeker turns his back to them, while he is counting to three, The participants should look like frozen when the seeker finish counting and turn toward them. The game is known also as “green light, red light”. Memorial projects emphasis the manipulation and the censorships over the course of history in the process of creating myth. One of the problems of memorial projects is the single narrative manifested in them, which could be biased. An artistic action taking place in a memorial site challenges the single story and calls upon other interpretations of the historical facts. The manipulation involves in the creation of myth starts very early in our life, using the innocence of children to distort the truth to fit the cannon narrative. Approaching to the childhood experience of the audience, as well as the usage of humor could dissolve prejudice and suggest different narratives and different interpretation of history. Shahar Marcus