Muliya, 2015

Muliya, Rimma Arslanov's grandfather, was born in Lithuania, married in Russia, worked and lived in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and immigrated to Israel in his late sixties. In a new work that combines a sculptural furniture object with sound, Arslanov deals with her grandfather's complex past, in an attempt to understand and connect through her artistic language with his cultural background and in fact with hers as someone who
immigrated to Israel with him in 2000. At the center of the work is furniture reminiscent of an old radio with stained glass.

Internal lighting illuminates the ornamental stained glass and from the object is heard a melody of her grandfather's accordion playing from a selection of melodies that he usually plays on a daily basis. The work is a kind of portrait or tribute to her grandfather and his unexpected pace of life, the melodies he plays, influenced by music from Soviet culture and combine melodies from movies, popular songs nostalgic and folk songs and even some of his original melodies.

The furniture is in fact a magic box containing a private and collective history and through its music weaves the story of his life as a Holocaust refugee as a child, Soviet education as a teenager and as one who hid his Jewish identity until later in life which eventually led to his and his family's immigration to Israel.

Curator: Maya Kashevitz