Ronit Porat

Ronit Porat was invited artist at the Kölnisches Stadtmuseum as part of the first edition of the Artist Meets Archive project.

In parts, her collage-like procedure may be classed as a Dadaist photomontage method. Porat uses these images, which she alters by means of trimming, as well as private photographs in order to allow new narratives to arise and historical boundaries to become visible in her installations. With the help of the found “photographic traces and remnants”, Porat’s works are charged with psychological, emotional and gender-specific aspects and, along the way, also make reference to concepts of origin, the exertion of influence, and reproduction. Specifically, she investigates the transparent boundaries of gender and equality in Europe into the late 30s, when notions of a liberated “New Woman” were popularized and the camera became a personal research tool that placed the identity of these women at the focus. The Second World War and the necessity to preserve, pass on and responsibly deal with stories and documents also play an important role in Ronit Porat’s oeuvre.

When entering an archive I approach it as a researcher in a crime scene, looking for clues into how the past penetrates the present in order to gather visual sources that will help me to decipher the cognitive-emotional space in which I operate. I am interested in the movement that shifts between the personal and the collective and back to my personal biography, to examine the power of images to resonate in the memory and to create a sense of belonging.

Ronit Porat

The Graphics Collection at the Cologne City Museum, which comprises approximately 20,000 illustrations of Cologne’s urban and cultural history, invites Israeli artist Ronit Porat to perform a rediscovery and a reinterpretation of these archived items.

Internationale Photoszene Köln