The experience of Covid-19 is a collective one. This is an exceptional time to be alive in the sense that pretty much everyone currently existing on earth has been affected in one way or another by the one, same thing.

Of course these experiences vary in their nature depending on personality and socio-economical positions, amongst other factors. The uncertainty and instability bring with it various reflections of these shared circumstances.

I collected testimonials written by Jerusalem residents regarding the first quarantine period, requesting them to share their experiences, reflections and lessons learned from these times.

I later created a ‘textual collage’ by extracting fragments of sentences from their texts and rearranging and connecting them to fragments from other participant’s words, to create new stories.

These stories, comprised of individual and personal descriptions of experiences, now depict a ‘collective experience’, creating newfound notions and highlighting similarities and broader issues.

Posters with these texts were installed around Jerusalem’s city center for people to recognise slivers of their experience, see it new light and understand their part in the larger, shared reality.

This project was produced in collaboration with and as part of the Israel Festival.

To read the texts, and their English translation, click here.

Photos by Tal Uliel and Nimrod Vainer.