In Another Green explores the dynamics of coloniality in Israel through the theme of nature. It borrows its title from ‘Preliminary Background Remarks’, a poem by the Algeria-born Israeli poet Erez Biton that reflects on the disintegration of Eastern Jewish traditions in Israel and the poet’s conflicted cultural position. The artworks on display engage with the binary opposition of culture and nature that shapes the colonial matrix of power, and with the perception that para-modern societies are closer to nature. This conception has framed the interaction between Western and Eastern Jews in Israel/Palestine since the 19th century. The Eastern Jew, like the Palestinian, was considered by European Zionists to be a ‘natural worker’ (an expression that Grady uses as one of his exhibitions’ titles), and it was one of the incentives to encourage Aliyah (immigration to Israel) from Eastern countries. The ‘primitiveness’ of ‘Eastern’ Jews was both celebrated and suspected. On the one hand, they embodied the ancient Jewish past that the Zionists sought to revive, and on the other hand, they were considered culturally undeveloped and ideologically unmotivated.

The exhibition will open at KCC on the 8th of May, 2022.