Hadas Satt
Hadas Satt at Park HaHorshot 2018, photo: Maya Bamberger
Maya Bamberger: Which camera are you using?
Hadas Sastt: I Always use negatives, with the first camera that was placed in my hands. It is the story of every photography student whose Dad has given her his camera at the age of 16. I've tried all sorts of cameras, and in the
MB: Are you giving up the sharpness?
HS: I want the disintegration of the grain. Maybe it's a New Age thing.
MB: About lack of perfection?
HS: Not at all. The world is not so sharp. We see from the gut, and I want to recreate this experience. I want photography to be physical. I want to photograph from the body.
MB: What actions do you take to photograph from the body?
Hadas Satt at Park HaHorshot 2018, photo: Maya Bamberger
HS: When I take pictures of the trees I lie on the ground. I want to understand the distance between the ground and the treetop, to understand this point of view of being in the ground, as a symbolic state of a body that has such a fate. Hoping to have some tree above it. Not in a morbid sense. That's why distance is such an interesting thing.
Hadas Satt at Park HaHorshot 2018, photo: Maya Bamberger
Apropos of distance, there was a lunar eclipse recently, and I watched it with my parents, up north. My Dad is an aeronautical engineer. He explained to me that the earth's distance from the moon is about 380,000 km, and that a
MB: Why did we meet here at Park HaHorshot (Forest Park)?
A Shadow Lighter, June 2017, Installation view from
HS: Here is where I photographed the trees I showed in the gallery. Many such pine forests were planted here. Pine grows fast and eliminates everything next to it. I look at these trees, and I say that they are a bit sad. They are inorganic. There are some trees there that started to be eaten by beetles, which I love to see. It's an easy place to come to and take pictures
Park HaHorshot 2018, photo: Maya Bamberger
MB: And what does it mean that you come to take pictures?
HS: I'm not the kind of photographer who always has her camera with her, taking pictures, although sometimes I'd like to be one.
MB: Why don't you take the camera with you everywhere?
HS: In recent years, I don't photograph life as much. I go out to parks and zoos to do specific actions. I need to feel I'm on a trip, a bit like a tourist.
MB: And do you know what you're looking for when you go out shooting?
HS: Sometimes. I have my usual things that, when I'm stressed and don't know what to do, I take pictures of them to calm myself.
MB: Trees ...
HS: And bats.
MB: And what do you do with your raw materials?
HS: First, I arrange them in pairs, so they won't be alone. That they will have someone.
A Shadow Lighter, June 2017, Installation view from RawArt Gallery, photo: Lena Gomon
MB: But sometimes trios and groups are formed... And then they can talk among themselves, and you don't have to do the talking.
HS: It creates context. It can be aesthetic or verbal.
MB: What other actions do you take with the materials?
HS: The digital space of Photoshop is a fantastic place, with a world of new possibilities. In "Lady Be Good," what I was photographing was many transparent layers of sky and jet trails, and I added real clouds, to make it more delicious. The structure is like that of a flock of birds. Initially, I was interested in jet trails as drawings in the sky. I didn't understand what was so appealing to me about them. Gradually, when I'd read a little about them, I realized that they were actually clouds.
Lady Be Good, 2014, Archival inkjet print, 294x130 cm, Herzliya Museum/Young artist biennale Moscow
MB: In their physicality?
HS: In their molecular composition. If you take them to a lab and examine their structure, it is the structure of a cloud. It is merely an artificial cloud produced by an artificial bird. So it has a significant and poetic connection between nature and culture, which is perfect for me. It has defined my interest so accurately.
MB: Of nature and culture?
HS: Photography has always been a medium that deals with the connection between nature and culture. It is inherent in its history. Nature photography was invented together with photography. Photography was an extension of science, and the first thing to be explored was nature. Technology is the mediator between man and the object, which is nature. It is interwoven in the history of photography.
MB: You once told me that the sofa was the most essential element of the studio.
HS: You must have a sofa. Must have a nap on it.
MB: What happens when you sleep in the studio?
HS: First of all, it means that it's a place where I can really relax. It's a safe zone, where I can abandon myself to time. In my last studio I couldn't do that. Some say that a sofa is strictly prohibited. That a studio is not a place for rest. They come to work. They want it rough. My studio is the computer, the sofa and the walls. I can't stand empty walls. I need them to always be filled with works, or props, or installation attempts. And a window.
MB: Must have a window.
HS: I left the studio a while ago as an act of youthful rebellion. Now I've reached the point that I'm hungry for it again.
MB: What are you hungry for?
HS: A place that is secret and you can close the door. I love closed doors.
MB: I love open doors.
HS: If there is a door you need to close it, or open it and then go out.
MB: My anxiety leaves the door open.
HS: For me, anxiety closes it.
MB: And how often do you close it?
HS: Now, the studio is a work space in my house. It is adorable, but the house and life get mixed in. Art and life mix. It's not a bad thing - it's life. But I need more distance.
MB: You have a solo show in the gallery in one year's time.
HS: That's right. Let's see what happens... It's bubbling up in l different directions right now.
Hadas Satt at Park HaHorshot 2018, photo: Maya Bamberger
06.08.2018