Curatorial Re-Action in Israel Post October 7th: The Approach of Empathy

Abstract

This article analyzes responses of museums and art institutions in Israel to the events of October 7th. It stresses the public role of museums in times of crisis, and the ways that diverse curatorial choices reflect upon their institutions’ pursuits. It focuses on the case study of curatorial empathy, enacted at the Tel Aviv University Art Gallery, noting its aptness at times of crisis and trauma. The article claims that in a society that experiences both internal and external conflicts, the approach of empathy offers flexibility and openness that allow the museum to respond to public need on the one hand, and poses challenging questions on the other. Such questions are explored through the method of artistic-scientific dialogue. As contentions multiply, overlap, and contrast, the expansion of circles of identification becomes a key strategy in addressing this crisis. This essay argues that empathy is a more thoughtful and productive curatorial approach, because it emphasizes connection rather than only identity. From this perspective, the crisis that started on October 7th is not only that of war, loss, and grief, but also that of a threat to humanness under extreme angst.

1. Introduction

The 7^th of October 2023 marked the opening of a disastrous war between Israel and Gaza, with an impact more massive than ever before in this conflict. Within Israeli society, the events of October 7th have given rise to various creative reactions, such as immediate spontaneous installations in the public sphere, original works by artists, as well as new exhibitions put up by museums. This articles explores the ways that museums within Israel reacted to this crisis. According to the ICOM (International Council of Museums), museums, as institutions in the service of society, are committed to “offering varied experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing.”1 How was this mission met by museums in Israel in the immediate aftermath of October 7th?

While dedicated to inclusivity and diversity, museums are never neutral; dismantling their unregistered structures is a mission stressed by recent authors in the field of museum studies (Raicovich 2021).2 With this disastrous war ongoing for much longer than imagined, voices against its continuance emerged, as they often do, within cultural and intellectual circles in Israel. Employees of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, for example, have been protesting, every day for months, standing silently in the public square outside their building. In a country where political protest against governmental policies is ongoing yet limited in its effectivity, it begs asking: how can museums enact their role as museums? In the aftermath of October 7th, the immediate response of Israeli museums was to face inwards—towards Israeli society—generating a variety of reactions. This happened concurrently with an instant pause of international collaborations and loans—which were no longer coming to Israel due to the war. This essay maps and categorizes these curatorial responses, showing how they reflect their respective institutions’ missions. This mapping serves as a framework for the chief example of this essay—an exhibition titled “Re: Empathy,” which I initiated and curated at the Tel Aviv University Art Gallery. One of the points of this essay is that empathy is a more thoughtful and productive approach—since it emphasizes connection rather than identity. As such, it provides an alternative to a “fight or flight” reaction in extremely stressful and threatening situations. It addresses trauma as a multi-layered experience, which involves suffering violence, inflicting it upon others, and witnessing an unprecedented enormous amounts of pain. The search for an intermediary position—both enabling and interrogative—within a museum setting, is the proposal put forth by this article.

Immediate, spontaneous public responses to the events of October 7th included numerous installations erected in the plaza designated as “the Hostages Square” in Tel Aviv.3 Merely 20 min away, at the Expo Convention Center, a commemorating installation centered on victims of the attack at the Nova Music Festival went on view in December 2023. It included remains from the scene—burnt cars, personal objects left behind, bullet-riddled bathroom stalls, and more. Amongst these were portraits of victims and videos from the festival itself. The installation (called exhibition, by its initiators), which was created and directed by Reut Feingold, revives the horror and destruction, transported from the actual scene to a neutral, remote space. A version of this installation then went on view in NY, LA, Miami, and now Toronto, bearing witness to the atrocities of that day with material evidence of remnants from the scene. At the site itself where the massacre took place, in the Re-im parking lot, a spontaneous memorial also took shape, including sculptures of the local red anemone, planted trees, photos of the murdered and kidnapped, and more. Both on site and away from it, transporting evidence of horrors taken place on the “Black Saturday” and since, these installations are meant to commemorate, to honor, to grieve, and to call for identification and action.

Much that has been written on art and conflict focuses on such issues of memorialization, activism, creation as refuge, and the like. Many scholarly analyses of artistic responses to conflict take place in retrospect, examining their impact on the conflict’s resolution or its advancement. A real-time investigation of art institutions’ responses to conflict is of distinctive value, as means of assessing the meaning ascribed to the current crisis. Few books on the role and function of museums in times of war have been published in recent years.4 While political activism in museums is a well-discussed topic, the work of art museums in responding to trauma and conflict calls for further study. This essay explores Israeli museums after October 7th and their cultural role in signifying these events, differently from spontaneous public installations or artistic creations. Future reflections on this crisis, giving meaning to notions of locality and contested land, will surely take place in upcoming years. It remains to be seen if and how October 7th might change Israeli and Palestinian art, as was claimed about the September 11th attacks’ influence on American art (Swartz 2006).5 However, curatorial responses that took place immediately after the attack provide insight into the varying roles and responsibilities of artistic institutions in times of conflict, betraying different interpretations of the current crisis. The scope of the discussion offered here covers institutions within Israel, with the hope that a future inquiry into parallel reactions in Palestinian territories will allow for a meaningful dialogue. It also acknowledges that, with the expanding magnitude of death and suffering, further explorations on the challenge of empathy will have to take place.6 What this essay proposes is a view onto the first few months after the attack, the urgency it inflicted upon museums, the various choices they have made, and the implications for art’s ability to provide a new “connection” zone, in a contested and conflictual place.

In the weeks and months following the attack, many Israeli artists began to create artworks that immediately responded to these horrific events or emerge from their experiences at the time.7 Some of these works became the foundation for exhibitions dedicated to October 7th, featured in museums and galleries either several months later, or in commemorating one year to the attack. Since museums generally plan their exhibitions several years in advance, they were all faced with a pressing question on whether they were going to continue with what they had planned beforehand, or whether the current moment demanded something else. Were they to decide to put preplanned shows on hold or postpone them, how would they be able to form an alternative on an accelerated timeline of months rather than years of preparation? At a time when reality, as people in the region have known it, fell apart, not taking a stance became all the more difficult. In other words, both choosing to continue with that which has been planned beforehand, and formulating new programs were statements, in the face of an unfamiliarly tragic reality.

Though paralyzing at first, the examples brought forth in this essay exemplify how art institutions in Israel quickly realized that their commitments, even under such extreme circumstances, have not changed. Responses may be diverse, but the urge for action was both shared and amplified. It will certainly take longer to gain meaningful perspective over these events, especially as they continue to unfold in disastrous ways. This essay does not ponder long-term implications of this crisis, but looks into a very specific moment—of Israeli society right after the outbreak of this war. Artists often reported the immense difficulty of returning to the studio and to the production of art, under these new circumstances. Several artists have shifted the focus of their activity to the civil struggle calling to end the war and hostages’ release. However, a view towards the variety of exhibitions on view during the first year after the attack testifies to museums’ significant role in responding to the current crisis. As will become clear throughout this essay, the diverse curatorial choices both emerge from and enhance their respective institutions’ pursuits, reflecting on the social role of art in times of pain, trauma, and conflict.8

Empathy has been widely recognized as the key agent in therapeutic processes, both from a psychoanalytical and a philosophical point of view. While a judgmental, evaluative attitude affects patients negatively, empathy fosters positive therapeutic relationships and facilitates change (Kaluzeviciute 2020, p. 15; see also Richmond 2004; Eagle and Wolitzky 1997, pp. 217–44). Empathy is a critical tool in fostering individual as well as communal well-being and promoting social change, especially in times of crisis (Berardi et al. 2020, pp. 57–67). The claim of this essay is that in times of conflict and trauma, and especially in navigating the complex overlapping conflictual positions in Israeli society, both internal and external, curatorial empathy gains further import. Against the backdrop of other curatorial approaches—therapeutic, salvaging, coexistence, or echoed violence—this essay shows that curating which emphasizes encounter and connection is particularly apt during these times. This approach allows the museum to navigate between responding to public need on the one hand, and serving as a leader and exemplar in shaping public discourse, on the other. This combination, at times of social polarity and strife, is particularly challenging. The analysis of the “Re: Empathy” exhibition, against that of other available responses, shows that as contentions multiply, overlap, and contrast, the expansion of circles of identification becomes a key strategy in addressing this crisis. From this perspective, the crisis is not only that of war, loss, and grief but also that of a threat to humanness under extreme angst.

2. Materials: The Israeli Art World After October 7th

The events of October 7th left Israeli society, and museum professionals included, in an initial state of shock. During the first weeks—schools, public spaces, cultural institutions, and more—were all closed to the public. Then, when allowed to reopen, museums and galleries had to choose their responses to this unfolding crisis. For major museums, immediate action had to include removing artworks from view and into safe storage. They all had to question how art and the experience it offers can remain relevant at times of war. Can exhibitions that were conceptualized and created before October 7th regain significance after? What would it require to bring in people to view art, when many have lost their homes, livelihood, or loved ones, and everyone experiences threat and trauma greater than ever before? How much of museums’ curatorial decisions was associated with caring for their publics (many offered free workshops and creative activities for kids whose families fled southern Israel and were out of school for several months), and how much of it was taking a stance in response to current events? What were the diverse messages and implications of these choices?

2.1. The Therapeutic Approach

At Muza, the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv, curator Raz Samira chose to create an exhibition that offered visitors a moment of refuge from the pains of outside reality. The exhibition entitled “An Asana Moment, Meditative Breathing Now,” could be thought of as “first aid,” an urgent response to the mental need for respite and calmness in the midst of chaos, fright, and trauma. The exhibition (Figure 1) opened at the end of March 2024, less than six months after the attack. Despite the short timeframe from inception to production, Samira, who joined Muza shortly prior as Deputy Director and Chief Curator, used her longtime expertise in video and photography to select works that would best suit this task. While created prior, these works respond to a very urgent need that emerged from the attack—quieting the mind, relieving stress, and encouraging mindfulness. The exhibition was on view for three months and was a timely response to the tremor experienced by Israeli society. It seemed to rely on a realization that some time will be needed in order to reflect, interrogate, realize, and understand the impact of contemporary events and respond to them critically. In the meantime, and only for a brief moment—as its title states—this exhibition provided audiences with what they were truly missing in current reality—the ability to deepen their breaths and quiet their minds.

At The Israel Museum in Jerusalem, around the same time, long time curator and current Director, Suzanne Landau, curated an exhibition entitled “The Dawn of Darkness: Elegy in Contemporary Art.” The exhibition featured a selection from the museum’s extensive permanent collections, with an addition of a single artwork that was created post October 7th, the cycle “tears” by Joshua Borkovsky. Each squared sheet in this cycle has the word “tear” drawn on it in one of several languages (Hebrew, Arabic, Yiddish, Italian, etc.) (Figure 2). In the text that accompanies the work, Borkovsky relates how difficult it was for him to bring himself to go to the studio after October 7th, and how sadness and worry brought him, intuitively, to create a tear. Without planning, this has become a daily ritual, every day he created one or more tears. All the works in the exhibition address notions of pain, loss, and ruin, in one way or another. Combining works of Israeli as well as international artists from the collection, the overall experience is one that resonates with the strain and sorrow of the current moment, without responding to it directly. This curatorial choice indicates awareness of the time needed in order to form observations on this specific moment. In a poetic reflection on elegy, Landau formed a powerful yet delicate picture that seeks to universalize rather than personalizes human anguish. Within an encyclopedic museum, the return to its permanent collection speaks to one of the institution’s strengths. Instead of refuge or retreat from outside reality, the exhibition served as a contemplative aesthetic space where pain and loss reverberate in a myriad of ways. It invited visitors, who come in with personal, diverse experiences vis-à-vis current events, to find their own way to grieve.

ANU: the Museum of the Jewish People (formerly the Diaspora House) also dedicated an exhibition to this topic, entitled “October Seventh.” It opened less than five months after the event, bringing together works and reactions of twenty five Israeli artists, most living but some also murdered on October 7th or killed during the war. Several are also residents (or former residents) of southern Israel and therefore were more directly affected by these events. Curators Carmit Blumensohn and Michal Houminer wrote, “As the canons are heard, the voices of the muses are emerging all the more clearly from deep down in the throat.” They also noted that the exhibition does not aim to offer a conclusive perspective on Israeli art since October 7th but to emphasize the “burst of creativity in Israeli society since the outbreak of the war.”9 A soundtrack of songs in Hebrew accompanied the exhibition, trying to turn it into what the curators described as “A Space of Anguish, Loss, Anger, Memory and Sorrow.” While these might reflect separate stages in an individual’s mourning process, quite challenging to fit into one exhibition space, the shows seemed to aspire to give visitors the opportunity to feel one or more of those feelings, as appropriate to each of them. Within the context of ANU’s overall mission, aiming to adopt a pluralistic approach that celebrates Jewish creativity, art, and culture, such curatorial choice seems fitting. Reactions to October 7th were centered in this exhibition space, as well as appearing in the museum’s entrance hall. Given its new and grand permanent exhibition—an extremely technological, interactive abundance of display—this choice, once again, seems appropriate within the museum’s overall structure.

Different Israeli museums, therefore, reacted in ways that coincided with their institutional mission, fitting with the strengths of their collection and/or leadership. Other significant examples include acts of physical rescue of works that survived the attack, as well as the recreation of ones that perished in it. These responses emphasize artworks as active participants in a narrative of trauma and survival.

2.2. Salvage

In the Ein Harod Mishkan, chief curator Avi Lubin curated a series of exhibitions dedicated to works by artists from Kibbutzim along the Israel–Gaza Border—those mostly harmed on October 7th. One is a solo exhibition by Haran Kislev, a resident and native of Kibbutz Be’eri, who painted its local landscapes infusing them with anxiety, suspense, and a looming sense of danger. Kislev and his family were locked in his house’s shelter for many hours, with terrorists outside their door; they survived and so did Kislev’s paintings.10 The works, although created before October 7th, reflect the reality of living under continued assaults and rocket shootings; on that day, reality became crueler and more tragic than ever before, making a painting like “Help!” (2023) (Figure 3) seem eerily prophetic. Loaded with very thick paint and charged with a threatening feeling, these works are joined by ones created after the massacre. Entitled “Kibbutz Anxiety,” this exhibition, along with the one that followed, is in line with the Mishkan’s foundational ethos (it was founded in 1937)—saving Jewish culture that was in danger of extinction and preserving it.

Kislev’s exhibition captures the notion of survival, heightened in his subsequent work. In a more recent one-man show (at Zemack Contemporary Art Gallery, ZCA), he dismantled works painted before the massacre and created, from their ruins, new works. Almost all of his new paintings in the ZCA show include surviving elements from older works. This practice relates to Kristine Stiles’ discussion of destruction and trauma in art; “destruction art is the visual corollary to the discourse of the survivor: it bears witness to the tenuous conditionality of survival—survival itself being the fundamental challenge posed by humanity in the twentieth century and to humanity in the twenty-first century.”11 This emphasis on survival and salvation also characterizes Lubin’s second exhibition at the Mishkan, entitled “Kibbutz Sometimes.” It was dedicated to Dov Heller (1937–2018), a multidisciplinary artist and farmer who lived and worked in Kibbutz Nirim. It featured works from his estate, which also survived the atrocities of October 7th. These works unfold Heller’s creative practices, his socialist worldview, and his acknowledgment of trauma on both sides of the conflict.12 Lubin’s response to the current crisis allows for a continued reflection on the notions of arts survival and the preservation of cultural legacies.13 As such, it is very much in line with the ethos and heritage of the institution he has been leading since the summer of 2023.

The Yanko Dada Museum in Ein Hod reproduced and reinstalled an exhibition that was on view at the Be’eri gallery on October 7th and burnt in the attack. Artist Osnat Ben-Dov’s show, entitled “a Shadow of a Passing Bird,” featured photographs of personal objects related to her family history or ordinary everyday objects found in her home. Sofie Berzon MacKie, the curator and director of Be’eri’s gallery and survivor of the disaster, described this exhibition as one that addresses longing, imbued in Ben-Dov’s works through a sense of transience on the one hand, and repose on the other. The works were reproduced and reframed, and the artist’s book reprinted—testifying to war’s inability to extinguish human spirit and creativity. The generous invitation on behalf of the Yanko Dada Museum was a gesture of hospitality in times of crisis, generating hopefulness in a moment when artists, curators, and the public all needed it very much.

These preliminary responses to the events of October 7th on the part of museums and galleries in Israel show that most institutions felt compelled to become active participants in shaping the current moment. They did so either by attending to what they conceived of as the needs of their publics (therapeutic) or by taking the lead as rescuers and saviors of art (salvage). However, alongside these, there were also institutions that continued with exhibitions that were just about to open, and their opening was interrupted by the war. The Umm al-Fahm Museum of Arab Art provides an important such example, transmitting a strong message on the persistence of the life of co-existence.

2.3. Living Coexistence

The Umm al-Fahm Art Gallery, recently officially recognized as the first Israeli museum of Arab art, is dedicated to dialogue and to promoting Arab–Israeli artists. For over three decades, its founder and director, Said Abu Shakra, has devoted his life to coexistence, friendship, and equality in the state of Israel, through art and education. The dual identification through Palestinian heritage on the one hand, and Israeli citizenship on the other, has never been an easy combination to pursue, but the events of October 7th and their aftermath have made it ever more difficult. A series of exhibitions was installed and ready to open to the public on October 14th, 2023; the gallery, like all other institutions, shut its doors to the public. When it reopened two and a half months later, the previous set of exhibitions was first exposed to the public. Offering a series of angles and voices, these exhibitions included, among others, a show by Tamar Lev-On. This exhibition centered on human–animal hybrids emerging from a local popular legend from Wadi Ara, contemplating identity constructions through a combination of reality, fiction, and folklore. On two video channels, the plot told in Arabic and translated into Hebrew rhymes revealed, according to curator Galia Bar-Or, “cultural discrepancies, small contradictions resulting from semantic disagreements, translation issues, differences in interpretation, and so on.”14

A second exhibition, “Code of Absent Presence,” was by Sophie Abu Shakra, a member of the prominent family of Arab–Israeli artists. It explored the relationship between craft and technology, inquiring into the cultural materials of the life as a young Palestinian–Israeli woman. Traditional Palestinian crafts—embroidery and sculpting in olive trees—were combined here, forming hybrid objects made with a code written for a CNC milling machine, disrupting traditional gender oppositions in contemporary culture (Figure 4).15 Together, these and other exhibitions in this series explored local traditions and narratives through dialogue, repetition, and variation, providing a range of viewpoints onto the symbolic charge of Israeli–Palestinian cultures. Precisely because the premise of Umm al-Fahm’s gallery is based on humanity and dialogue in the midst of an incredibly difficult social and political reality, its exhibitions remained relevant beyond the events of October 7th, enduring a message of sustained life of coexistence. As such, this curatorial approach works to revive trust and re-establish a sense of stability under conditions of massive violence.16

The gallery continued to offer programs and events for diverse publics throughout the year and in November 2024 opened a new set of exhibitions that commented, more directly, on the current moment.17 The exhibition “The Last Supper” by Sobhiyya Hasan Qais addressed the dire and urgent crisis in Gaza, while the exhibition “Memory Patches” was a collaboration between two female artists from very different backgrounds, Caron Tabb and Nahawand Jbaren, who stitched together elements from their family traditions (Figure 5). It becomes clear how keeping previous projects while taking the time to develop new ones was fitting with the continuous, persistent narrative that guides Umm al-Fahm’s work. The gallery’s mission and its dedication to multiculturalism, tolerance, equality, and dialogue, were at the core of the exhibitions it had up before October 7^th, and served as an important reminder after. If Sophie Abu Shakra transformed traditional embroidery into a coded object, made of wood and epoxy, reflecting upon gender positions in Palestinian–Israeli culture, Tabb and Jbaren returned to the materiality of fabric, attempting to stitch together their two traditions. The exploration of locality, customs, and conversing historical narratives through innovative introspection, remained the foundation of the new series of exhibitions. It offered both a painful reminder of the tragic realities of this region, and an attempt to imagine new breaches, bridges, and sutures, needed more than ever before.

2.4. Echoing Violence

A very different example, daring yet extremely difficult to digest, is the exhibition of contemporary Israeli artists entitled “Evil Root,” by curator Sally Haftel Naveh, which opened on May 18th, 2024, at the Jerusalem Artists’ House. Home to the Jerusalem Artists’ Association, this institution is located in the historic 19th century building that used to be the first public museum in Israel, now offering a range of exhibitions, solo as well as group shows, each year. Naveh’s position as an independent curator and the institution’s diversified mission must have contributed to their ability to feature such an exhibition at that moment, merely seven months after the outbreak of this war. This project was conceived and developed before October 7th, exploring the dark, evil side of human nature, its sources, diverse forms, and moral implications. Works in the exhibition evoke the immanence of violence in diverse and very powerful ways. While the motivation was to present evil’s universality and the social structures that normalize it, the moment and context of the exhibition turned into a very challenging image of Israeli reality. In a time of heightened violence and suffering, such an exhibition elevated pain rather than alleviated it. It is the reverse mirror image, if you would like, of Samira’s curatorial choice in “An Asana Moment.”

“Evil Root” included works that explore aesthetic similarities between inquisition attire and KKK uniform (Roy Cohen’s “LIVEVIL”) or bring together gay dominating sexuality and the industry of dog breeding (in a work by Itamar Stamler), questioning the reversibility of victim and victimizer, pleasure and suffering, and societal moral boundaries. Startling and disorienting experiences in this exhibition (Ana Wild’s “Bad Girls,” shown in a very dark room, for example) are powerful, yet induce anxiety. A work by artist and theater director Johnathan Ron, who exhibited another piece concurrently at the “Empathy” exhibition, is entitled “Sing Along.” Ron used texts from protocols documenting violent cases discussed in Israeli courts, projected them on the wall in a karaoke format and invited visitors to perform them (Figure 6). Removed from their original context, without accompanying visuals or documents from the events themselves, these texts are simply astounding. Ron cleverly selected a variety of shockingly harsh episodes, paced the words on the screen and added an original soundtrack—heightening the dramatic effect of the event. With those, he cast viewers into re-enactors of violent events that happened in real life, as either victims or perpetrators; the audience in Ron’s performative work encounters extreme violence that exists in Israeli society, the devastating power of words, and the pressing question of social responsibility in witnessing such behaviors.

In a conversation with the curator, Naveh explained that her original conception for the exhibition included an artwork that would target and attack the viewer, which she chose to take out after October 7th. She, therefore, views the actualized show as a more sublimated version of her original idea, as an impact of the recent crisis.18 Violence, murder, racism, exploitation, and domination are all addressed here in the context of sexual, racial, and gender relationships, as well as that of humans and animals. The focus of the exhibition is not the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, yet it foregrounds questions of personal and collective responsibility in the face of injustice and violence, which resonate very differently in the post October 7th reality than they would have earlier on. Naveh’s decision to go on with the project was daring yet very difficult to take in. She writes, “Despite the complexity and the difficulty in dealing with this subject in light of the harsh, tragic events we experienced, we chose to hold the exhibition and direct our gaze at the evil, which was present in our lives before, and will sadly be present in the future as well” (Haftel Naveh 2024).

“Evil Root” set to explore maliciousness as a universal phenomenon, yet after October 7th the works inevitably gained new resonance. Responses to the exhibition varied, yet rather than intervening in evaluating it, what I wish to question are the constrictions posed upon its premise, due to contemporary events.19 Naveh’s curatorial approach dwells on evil as innate to universal human experience, examining social accountability to its normalization. While some believe that encountering evil directly is key to seeking its reduction, the works’ potential to transform their viewers, at that very moment in time, remains a question. For audiences who are in the midst of undergoing trauma, would such constellation prompt contemplation or estrangement? As an art exhibition, it is very different from the Nova installation—regarded as a documentary, “real-time” response to the events of October 7th. Within a museum setting—could it be that times of crisis require that another set of sensibilities be added to those routinely used, even in a complex and violently charged place like Israel? The importance of “Evil Root” seems to enhance as this horrific war continues, yet it could be that its presence in May 2024 was early for its time in terms of what its audiences were able to take in.

Together, these different curatorial choices in response to October 7th provide a view into the range of approaches that museums and galleries across Israel adopted vis-à-vis this crisis. It is emblematic of institutions’ abilities, limitations, ambitions, and conceptions of their public role. A collection of responses, such as alleviating pain, resonating grief, celebrating the endurance of human creativity, salvaging artworks, promoting cross-cultural dialogue, or resonating cruelty and violence, were some of the curatorial positions taken by museums in Israel post-October 7th.20 Despite the initial shock, followed by immersion in the necessities of daily life (in the first weeks many Israelis were involved in cooking, collecting, delivering, donating, and helping those in need), museum professionals remained committed to shaping reality and its understanding in the months followed; the urge to respond and have an impact was apparently quite strong.

The chief example of this essay is the exhibition “Re: Empathy”—a curatorial response reflective of its position within an academic gallery, which serves a heterogeneous community. Rather than focusing on a specific need—to relieve, salvage, or confront—this exhibition sets to open up questions and prompt a reflective approach amongst visitors. What the analysis put forth in the coming pages seeks to demonstrate, is how an open-ended approach that incorporates scientific interrogation became useful in addressing the convoluted, evolving nature of this crisis. The methods of empathy and of bringing together artists and researchers from across campus, were incorporated here to offer a thoughtful perspective over the challenges of the current moment.

This curatorial choice reflects the belief that the crisis experienced since October 7th should not be viewed as unrelated to conflicts within Israeli society. It also relies on the belief that overcoming war and crisis depends, to a large degree, on the ability to envision a different future. As historian David Cannadine argues, this process also involves rethinking our past. Despite the apocalyptic perspective of “us” against “them,” humanity, he claims, is still here:

no one has vanquished “us” or “them” on either side of any of these divides (…) suggest[ing] a broader, more ecumenical, and even more optimistic view of human identities and relations—a view that not only accepts difference and conflict based on clashing sectional identities, but also recognizes affinities and discerns conversations across these allegedly impermeable boundaries of identity, which embody and express a broader sense of humanity that goes beyond our dis-similarities.

(Cannadine 2012)

These overlapping identities, even amidst dissimilarity and conflict, are at the core of the empathic approach. The choice to dedicate our 2024–2025 exhibition to issues of empathy, group identification, and social bias. was meant to contribute towards a greater acknowledgement of those overlaps. Through artistic dialogue, an exploration of one’s groups of identification prompts us to rethink our present, which in a moment will become our painful past.

Amidst destruction of lives, places, and beliefs, restorative processes can begin to take shape only with, among others, empathic presence.21 As Kristine Stiles notes, “Trauma requires a witness, someone who listens and empathizes, in order for healing to take place. Performance as a medium provides that witness.”22 The curatorial approach at the basis of this exhibition thinks of it as providing alternate modes of witnessing, listening, approaching, and being with another.23

3. An Interdisciplinary Method: Empathy as a Curatorial Strategy at a University Gallery

The Tel Aviv University Art Gallery is the largest university gallery in Israel, established in the 1980s. Following its founder’s death in 2011, its mission had to be updated, and in recent years, it features a new model for site-specific installations that bring together artists and scientists to form a unique dialogue. These collaborations result in interdisciplinary projects that address contemporary issues, such as botanical sustainability during an ecological crisis (Plan(e)t, 2020–2021); perception and cognition under the threat of a post-truth era (In the Mind’s Eye, 2023–2024), and pro-social behavior in a polarized society (Re: Empathy, 2024–2025). The exhibitions in this gallery, and this is a key point, are on view for longer periods of time (c. 9 months), accompanied by a public outreach program that includes theater productions, performances, film screenings, discussion, seminars, workshops, and more. As the gallery’s chief curator, I had other plans for its 2024–2025 season, but when October 7th happened, those had to change. Noticing that the crisis challenged empathetic behavior and propelled dispute over that which does and does not deserve empathic response, I chose to delve into this topic and form an exhibition that resonated it. In accordance with my line of work in the last few years, I brought together researchers and artists to explore these topics together.

It was clear, early on, that October 7th would impact the mental wellbeing of Israelis, as later shown by various studies (see, for example, Levi-Belz et al. 2024). Some of these studies have also identified ethnic minorities, especially Israeli Arabs, to be at increased risk for a range of mental health problems due to October 7th (Groweiss et al. 2024). In recent years, Tel Aviv University’s student body has diversified, with an increased number of minorities, especially Israeli Arabs. Considering the multifaceted nature of Tel Aviv University’s campus, as a microcosm of Israeli society, and thinking about the needs of this heterogeneous environment, I thought that an interrogation into the nature of pro-social behavior under trauma is both timely and important.

This approach relies on the theory of cultural theorist Mieke Bal, who stresses a crucial shift “from activist art, which persuasively focuses on specific political issues, to activating art,” using the attitude of empathy (Bal 2024, pp. 40–41). Empathy, through art, is key to dealing with the troubles of trauma; “… trauma does not go away; there is no ‘post’ to it. But it can be addressed, and even softened, with the help of empathic others. It is the task of the artwork to invite an empathetic audience” (Bal 2024, p. 41). With creative thinking and imaginative making, the discursive nature of art can work to improve social consciousness.24 This vision led my curatorial choice—to continue forming a dialogue between art and science—paving a path of empathic discourse for the gallery’s visitors.

I sought to learn from an expert on the psychology and neurobiology of pro-social behavior, hoping to understand how we determine where to direct our empathy, and what happens to it under distress. I contacted Prof. Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal, who studies how the brain processes the pain of others, when it prompts helpful behavior, and how mechanisms of identification and social bias affect these processes. Through conversations and multiple visits to Bartal’s lab, we learned about the strong connection between empathy and threat.

Empathy is the ability to understand another individual’s perspective, experience their emotions, and want to improve their situation. Under danger or traumatic experience, Bartal explained, humans adapt mental mechanisms of self-preservation, which often limit emotional and physical capacities of compassionate behavior outside of the inner group (the group with which I/you identify). Yet, her work also shows that empathy is an adaptable mechanism, and that circles of identification (those one would want to help), can grow and become larger. Bartal’s research shows that for some animals, in this case rats, short periods of cohabitation help turn those who were considered “others” into part of one’s reference group (Bartal et al. 2021; Bartal 2022; see also Bartal et al. 2011, 2014). Her work stresses that empathy is inherent to the natural behavioral repertoire, common to animals and humans. It prompts us, humans, to connect to our inherited, natural compassionate abilities, and shows us that these capacities are extremely flexible.

However, during extended periods of grief and mourning, these capacities are placed under intense pressure. Raising walls and barriers, designed to keep people from identifying with “too much pain,” is a survival mechanism. Yet, alienation from others’ suffering also encumbers humanity. Differently from the responses outlined above, I chose neither to offer escapism nor to bring the terrible reality outside into the gallery. My aim was to use the merits of scholarly pursuit in order to raise timely questions and inspire audiences to contemplate their own emotions and their hopes for transcendence of current, brutal reality. This meant walking an extremely narrow and delicate path, encountering emotional challenges of connection versus alienation, from a variety of angles.

What empathy theory stresses, and accordingly some works in the exhibition reflect, is the notion of mirroring; when I help someone in pain, it not only makes them feel better, but it also makes me feel better. Humans are wired to reflect others’ emotional states, and their neural networks represent both their own pain and that of others.25 This is “the warm glow of giving.” As I wrote in the catalog essay, “In fact, even if I feel powerless and unable to help or change things, merely being with someone else in their pain does help them. Research indicates that knowing you are not alone, that there is someone there to feel your pain and understand you, is help in itself.26 What is more, studies have shown that people who believe that their capacities for empathy are higher, actually end up conveying a stronger sense of empathy (Hasson et al. 2022). In other words, in order to better connect to others’ pain, you need to believe that your empathic resources are greater, and they will become so. These findings, together with studies on the potential of art to teach advanced life skills, including empathy (Arnold et al. 2014), and on personalizing exhibitions as ways of eliciting empathy in museums (Simeone 2016), make it clear that this topic merits further exploration in a museum context, especially in times of crisis.27

Looking to promote reflection over social identification and its limitations, the exhibition takes visitors on a journey that requires movement—through a field of moving fabrics, towards an object that struggles to breath, closer to flickering lights living within trumpet-shaped fragile hybrids, and more:

The title of the exhibition, “Re: Empathy,” encapsulates the concept of interacting with and responding to others. Other people’s appeals need not be explicitly articulated and can often manifest through facial expressions alone.28 Like other animals, we humans tend to offer assistance only when we can interpret something as a call or request for help; accordingly, various works in the exhibition explore the themes of appeal and our capacity to approach, pay attention and respond. The dialogical nature of empathy is mirrored in the pieces displayed in the gallery, where artwork is created following exchanges between artists and scholars.

(Mayer 2025)

Following this “movement towards,” the exhibition presents installations that work to suspend social biases and judgement, prompting openness towards the Other. As social group identifications determine empathic responses, putting those on hold allows contemplating over the limitations of our conceptions of inner versus outer groups. The final two rooms in the exhibition offer exactly that—one through sound and the other through vision. In what follows, I will offer a virtual tour of the exhibition, describing its various components. Then, I will analyze the experience it offers in ways that transform existing notions of curatorial encounters, a particularly apt response, I would claim, for an academic institution in this time of crisis.

Empathy is contingent upon a sense of security, confidence, and trust. Only when standing on stable ground can people also navigate the more painful aspects of their lives, as well as contemplate social identifications and their expansion. In order for audiences to be able to plunge into these worlds of contemplation, the exhibition welcomes its visitors with an illuminated, inclusive, and enabling space (Figure 7).

Guy Hadany’s kinetic sculpture, “Untitled Wing,” captures the fleeting flight of a bird’s wing, replicating it through a complex, hand-made machine. Hundreds of pieces were put together to create the synchronizing harmony of form (Figure 8 and Figure 9). In its delicate, perpetual movement, Hadany’s wing allow viewers to connect to its flow, to ground on the one hand, and aspire upwards on the other.29 Synchronization is central to empathy and its theories; in placing this moving sculpture at the entrance to the gallery, visitors enter a world of possibility, partaking in a different, slowing-down rhythm. The hall is painted in an airy light blue, the windows let in the sunlight and the sky, and the available seating allows for an extended observation—all of which are meant to help create a feeling of freedom, tranquility, and openness. Gallery visitors often came close to Hadany’s work and then lingered there for a while. They reported that its hypnotic harmony allowed them to shed layers of emotional burden they brought into the gallery, and surrender themselves to a calming and connecting experience. The curatorial approach here uses the entrance gallery as the first, necessary step in an introspective path—where visitors first gain a sense of stability, and only then are able to walk up the stairs and encounter what the artworks on the next floor have to offer.

Only after establishing a durational experience, visitors encounter more painful areas of emotional reality. In the first upstairs gallery, artist Lee Yanor created a “field” of soft fabrics printed as well as projected upon, with images of wheat fields (which most Israeli viewers would associate with southern Israel, the area attacked on October 7th) and dripping water. This flowing, breathing “nature” invites visitors to walk through it (Figure 10 and Figure 11). Suddenly, colorful flashes—disharmonious expressions of pain—interrupt nature’s movement. These are actually brain scans taken from Bartal’s lab, which capture the firing of neurons during helping activities. Yanor transformed these into star maps, galaxies of empathy, allowing the inner and the outer to converse. Her act of layering—of fabric, print, projection—invites thinking of the self as reflected in nature as well as in others walking through the same piece, prompting movement towards someplace new.

In the next space, a small mechanical sculpture struggles to breath on its own, urging visitors to come closer and listen to its pain. Made out of wood and leather, with a hidden sound box underneath (Figure 12), the sculpture resembles a musical instrument or an animal hybrid of sort. Moving up and down slowly, its aching breath is heard from a distance. “Inhale,” by artist Dor Zlekha Levy, was created during COVID, drawing attention to a typically spontaneous action that was no longer taken for granted. Growling, it disturbs the familiar pace of everyday life, inviting visitors to a shared, protracted process of inhale and exhale.30 In Israel post October 7th, when many were struggling for breath, Zlekha Levy’s work offered a possibility for connection with pain that emerges from a different world.

The following installation also focuses on drawing beings together, for a careful “listening.” Artist Netaly Aylon entered into dialogue with Prof. Ilit Ferber (Department of Philosophy, Tel Aviv University), whose research explores experiences of physical and mental pain in relation to language, self-expression, and empathy:

Following 18th-century philosopher J.G. Herder, [Ferber] observes that although we may initially recoil from other people’s pain, pre-linguistic expressions of distress like screaming or howling, as well as our ability to respond to them, are not unique to Homo sapiens. Sounds of anguish can deeply unsettle us even when their meaning is unclear, allowing us to experience empathy and share in the pain of others. This empathic echoing takes place within us, independent of explicit or spoken language.

(Mayer 2025)

Turning towards visuality, art becomes a place where a non-representational, discursive relationship with pain can take place. In “Re: Empathy,” this is conveyed neither in a redemptive fashion nor through a “translation” of testimony, to use Jill Bennett’s distinctions (Bennett 2005, pp. 3–4). In Ayalon’s case, it is through a personal, prolonged investigation into the nature of listening and the history of plant and human acoustics, prompting extensions of oneself towards another.

Set in pairs, Ayalon’s hybrid objects, inspired by 19th-century analog hearing aids, combine the vegetal funnel of a flower and the cochlea, the human inner ear (Figure 13 and Figure 14). Expanding both outward and inward, these hybrids are extremely fragile, with an exposed mechanism of wires and lights pulsating within. These are visual representations of sound frequencies, inaudible to the human ear, yet visible—becoming testimonies of a living presence. Together, they draw connection, intimacy, and prompt attentive listening.

These references to hearing aids, the cochlea, and painful voices versus inaudible sounds all touch upon the multi-sensorial nature of empathy. The next piece in the show is a sound installation, which turns to the audible as its primary mechanism of empathic openness. Together, these works dwell on the relationship between optical and sonic empathy.31 Noteworthy, and also common to the works explored thus far, is a connection to the natural world and to organic, life-like qualities of form. Whether the flying wings of a bird, wind-blown wheat fields, deep inhale and exhale of an animal-like instrument, or the heartbeat signaling of flower–cochlea hybrids, these all incorporate forms of nature in their constant movement.32 The focus on empathy as an innate and flexible ability that requires movement (towards another) is therefore commonly visible in the works of this exhibition.

Moving to the penultimate piece in the show, one enters an empty room with a wooden construction that invites sitting and listening to conversation that the artist Jonathan Ron conducted with complete strangers (Figure 15). It was originally created in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Ron was feeling lonely and hung notes with the message “You were missed” all around Tel Aviv, along with his private phone number. He then spoke to those who called him without knowing who they were, while they had no idea whom they were calling. In listening to these conversations, one senses how an open attention and suspension of human bias (it is very hard to label someone without knowing anything about them) allows us to form human connections and to listen with empathy. Visitors in this piece become active participants; their actions and responses stand at the heart of the viewing experience, evoking curiosity and a desire to keep listening (Figure 16).

After October 7th, when the streets of Tel Aviv were filled with posters of missing people, Ron’s appeal was loaded with new, tragic meaning. Mayer thus invited him to recreate this listening practice and examine what Israeli society was missing at that moment. While in 2021, Ron’s conversations featured hesitation, probing, and search for connection, those of 2024 were more intense, bringing in people who were worried for his safety (thus reflecting greater anxiety), as well those searching for a novel experience, amusement, or escape from reality.

Notably, both Zlekha Levy’s and Ron’s works were originally created during COVID, a period marked by global crisis and significant interpersonal challenges. Re-displaying them, either in a new environment or in a new iteration, helped form an extended perspective on the threats of this period. The relationships between these two moments—in issues like social regulation, public policing, forfeiting personal privacy, and more—suggest that there is a developmental relationship between them, one that implicates pro-social behavior under crisis.

The final room in the show features Ori Gersht’s 14-channel video installation, presenting pairs of children engaged in a laughing contest, in which the first to laugh loses the game (Figure 17 and Figure 18). This sensitive, heart-warming installation captures the children’s non-verbal communication, their attempts to remain serious and overcome the “contagious” effect of laughter, and the sense of release experienced when laughing together. Filmed in 2013, this video work portrays pupils at the Jewish-Arab school in Neve Shalom during intuitive, playful moments, precluding the identification of their social affiliation. Through the prism of Gersht’s simple, non-judgmental humanity, viewers witness a process of growing closer thanks to the unifying, liberating power of laughter.33 “First to Laugh” is an invitation to suspend social bias, providing visitors post October 7th with an opportunity for non-verbal communication, reminding them of the difficulty in avoiding identification with whoever faces us.

The children in Gersht’s work mirror one another—as one smiles, the other begins to smile as well; once the first laughs, the second can no longer keep a straight face. Again the powerful impact of mirroring, of a face-to-face encounter—which the French–Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas understands in moral terms—is made explicit (Levinas 1972). Mirroring, facing, being in dialogue, listening to a stranger on the phone or to the struggling breath of an out-worldly creature—are all at the core of the experience offered by this exhibition.

Dialogue is not only central to the exhibition’s theme but also to its method; an interdisciplinary curatorial approach that brings artists and scientists into conversation. This approach was explored in a former article I published, together with my colleague Prof. Sefy Hendler, on curatorial innovation during COVID (Mayer and Hendler 2022).34 There, we used the notion of “slow museology” to define our practice, stressing processes that require more time than institutions often allow for (see also Raicovich 2021, pp. 148–49). While October 7th posed an opposite challenge—with less time at hand and an urgent need to form a response—the type of flexibility that the COVID crisis required, has allowed for yet another change of plans, considering the challenging reality outside. In what remains, I will analyze the curatorial choice of “Re: Empathy” in Israel post October 7th, as an approach that transforms familiar notions of participation and contact in the gallery.

In light of fast-changing social sentiments during conflict, an inquisitive, open-ended contemplation of a question, rather than a remedy for a problem, seems particularly appropriate. This is an open-ended invitation for a journey, which allows meaning to transform over time.35 The journey begins with tranquility and continues through pain, open listening, and laughter—offering an experience of empowering connectedness to others, alongside a threatening view of humanism under pain. This complex position goes against populist politics of divisionism and polarization. It is a take on what Beatrice von Bismarck entitled “curatorial hospitality,” which focuses on processes instead of identities; “the ongoing reformulation of the temporary relations among human and nonhuman actors,” involving practices, tools, and positions that are continually redistributed and meaning that is generated collectively (von Bismarck 2022). Rather than attempting to explain or resolve conflicting identities and traumatic experience, “Re: Empathy” prompted openness through multiple acts of mirroring, reflections, and projections of one onto an-other.

4. Analysis: From Contact Zone to a Connection Zone

Without being able to anticipate this beforehand, “Re: Empathy” provided an alternate approach to those presented in the first part of this essay. While the entrance gallery gestures towards grounding and relaxation (as in Samira’s show), the exhibition continues with pain, strain of breath, and a call to get closer; only then does it allow visitors to experience the openness of suspended social biases though listening as well as through the uniting force of laughter. Rather than directing the gaze straightly at the evils of Israeli society (as in Naveh’s show) or looking at ruin as survival, this exhibition provides a different suggestion. Carefully touching upon the devastating topic of deteriorating humanness, it seeks to counterbalance a divisive dialogue, fostering contemplation over conclusion.

October 7th came after ten months of weekly demonstrations in the streets of Israel, with a judicial upheaval that tore society apart. Some even argued that these internal divisions weakened Israeli society, signaling to its enemies that this was the right time for an attack. In the first days and weeks after October 7th, internal divisions seemed to disappear; citizens from all across sections of society volunteered and helped one another. As Bartal notes, under extreme threat, we come closer to our inner group, and the trauma of October 7th redefined that inner group as all of Israeli society—but not for long. Soon after, previous contentions, disagreements, and arguments returned to public life. This multiplicity of conflicts, internal as well as external, and the changing relationship between those, called for a complex approach to curating in times of crisis. The one adopted by the TAU gallery attempts to ask questions, form reflections (mirroring), and allow for listening, in ways that would keep its relevance, even under the quickly changing reality of Israeli society.

The exhibition and the events associated with it suggested viewing one’s circles of identification—from family to community to state, region and humanity as a whole—as a continuum. This approach responds to the complexity of social reality in Israel—divided from within and attacked from outside. With students and staff from across the political and social spectrums, and through its commitment to exploration and research, as well as to asking difficult questions, the TAU gallery has chosen an approach that is in accordance with its institutional identity. Precisely because its shows remain on view for prolonged periods, and because of the changing needs of its community, it adopted such an inquisitive approach. Publics visiting the gallery and going on guided tours have reported that their belief in the power of human empathy and in its flexibility have become stronger. They came out of the exhibition willing to listen, more than they were beforehand. This is a result of a choice to go beyond comfort and pose some difficult questions on the power of humanity against horror.

The artist Jonathan Ron participated in two of these exhibitions at the same time—one on evilness and the other on empathy. In the first, he took court protocols, texts that were recorded and engraved in public consciousness, and in the second, he simply listened to the words of strangers. In one, he turned extremely violent dialogues into a lively karaoke scene, and in the other, he asked visitors to sit and listen quietly. In one, he featured familiar cases of known people, and in the other, he invited anonymous participants he knew nothing about to tell him their lives’ stories. Some truly moving and unexpected occurrences took place; the common thread between these two works is their creator, time of creation, and medium of participatory performance. They both touch upon human pain but from opposite perspectives—one of violence and judgement and the other of openness and empathy. Through the relationship between these works, the undertaking of TAU’s gallery becomes clearer.

Through curatorial empathy appropriate for times of crisis, this article proposes another viewpoint on the contested concept of museums as contact zones. According to James Clifford, the museum as a contact zone refers to its function as a post-colonial site of discourse—a place where power asymmetries manifest and are challenged through democratic practices of dialogue and exchange (Clifford 1997, pp. 212–13; see also Brown and Peers 2003). Critics of this approach claim that such practices are merely rhetorical, used by museums to re-legitimate their dominance while maintaining public acceptance (Boast 2011, pp. 56–70). With multiple crises and shifting notions of identification, curatorial empathy proposes seeing the gallery as not only a contact zone but also a connection zone. A space where differently empowered cultures come into contact, here the gallery becomes a place where one encounters the variances of one’s own modes of identification. This contact becomes a connection, not only with another but first with one’s innate, yet often obscured under crisis, empathic abilities.

The range of examples brought together in this essay reflect a diversified vision of the museum’s role in times of crisis. UNESCO’s definition of museums as institutions in the service of society and of its development, certainly found different manifestations here. Yet what society’s urgent needs were, and how to contribute towards its well-being, remain points for discussion. For an academic art institution serving a heterogeneous public and exhibiting projects over long periods of time, the focus on the structures and limitations of empathy was a way of addressing the specific challenges of the moment. As trauma continues to amplify through ever-growing circles of violence, empathy, as both method and topic, becomes a foundation for dialogue.