My Hospital Stories, 2005, photographs
Itay Ziv transforms the museum’s foyer into a waiting-room. He stages himself and his family in heart-rending scenes where he is seen dying at Tel Hashomer Hospital as his family and friends nurse him. This staged state of emergency generates a static rhythm of threatening waiting. Ziv disarms the harsh situation of any concrete cause or illness, lingering on the endless waiting. The photographs focus on staying by the patient’s bedside, the helplessness involved in the hospital experience, the machines, the never-ending examinations and tests, and the uncertainty.