A Tree for the Museum of Natural History, Halifax was a tongue-in-cheek project done with two other NSCAD students. Its aim was to look at the absurdist methodology of natural history museums in framing what is natural.

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installation | 2001

The Mailbox Gallery directors are Maya Pasternak and Dennis Hale. The Gallery has now returned to function as a mailbox. It functioned as a Gallery from October 3 – December 26, 2004 at No.2 Nakahara Green Heights, Kyoto, Japan. Here is a sample of its exhibitions.

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(above) Invitation to the Mailbox Gallery openings on Tuesdays.

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(above) Dennis Hale and Maya Pasternak’s opening show, “Desiccant Package” shows the effect of the package on the Mailbox, cleaned and cleared of all signs of being one. The Gallery is officially opened October 19, 2004.

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(above) Artist and amazing draftsman, Michael Whittle uses Japanese checkbooks to create this pop-up world at the Mailbox Gallery from November 2 – 7, 2004.

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Dennis Hale starts his one year’s rat-packing project where he throws out no garbage. Every piece of inorganic waste is washed and dried and put aside for safe keeping. The Mailbox Gallery is used between October 10 – 17 to document the accumulation of one week’s garbage.

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(above) Ino Takahiro fills the Mailbox Gallery from December 7 – 12, 2004 with an ironic and traditional piece.

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(above) Maya Pasternak’s “Daily News” offers a performance prop and inverts the role of the mailbox to that of a giver. Newspaper blindfolds are bundled with instant coffee for an easy morning ritual between October 26 – 31, 2004.

2004

Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution is a “No War” clause. It went into effect on May 3, 1947, immediately after World War II. In the article text, the Japanese Government formally renounces war as a right of sovereignty and the refusal to settle disputes using military force.

ARTICLE 9. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. (2) In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

mixed media installation | 2005

On Guard is the title of the installation and the performance at the Anna Leonowens Gallery in the Winter of 2006. There are three elements of the installation.

The Performer – Maya Pasternak carries out the duty of an IDF soldier, on guard for 30 minutes, resting for 15 minutes, for the duration of each day. Her uniform is not however worn, and sits opposite her on the chair. The routine is studied but in a very vulnerable manner and without the nationalistic symbolism.

The Wall – The wall is covered with a smörgåsbord of printed matter about the Israeli wars, the treatment of Palestinians, criticism, American dollar bills, images of British soldiers, maps, photographs, and more. At a corner stands a small table with notes and pens. Visitors are invited to leave comments, wishes and questions, not unlike at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, but public.

The Park – Canada Park takes up both windows. Each side holds 18 baby pines, or the numeric value of ‘life’ in Hebrew. Canada Park connects the events in Israel to Canada. Many have argued that Israel’s Canada Park reflects Canada’s complacency in what is considered to be a war crime. Read more.

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Supplementary Text
Pasternak’s installation and on-going performance are truth-seeking ventures framed by the conflicts in the Middle East. Personally situating herself within the tensions, she is reflexively looking at what it means to have been born from Israeli and Polish parents in today’s climate. Through her ambiguous relationship to an Israeli soldier’s uniform as a prop within her performance, Pasternak says, “There is a fine line one walks in being critical of the state of Israel. It is this fine line on which I will be standing for the duration of On Guard.”

Pasternak’s performance is set against the backdrop of a gallery wall covered with printed matter and media clippings about Israeli and Palestinian tension with propagandistic and critical press from both sides of the equation. Entitled “The Wailing Wall” people are encouraged to leave notes of debate and argument. Pasternak, with humanist zeal, intends to engage visitors to consider one’s responsibility to confront what is often most difficult to face.

performative installation | 2005

The Be’eri Chronicles is a body of work about memory and Kibbutz Be’eri. Kibbutz Be’eri is the starting point of a series of experimental documentaries that problematize and focus on the history and way of life of one of the disappearing institutions of Israel – the Kibbutz.

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Yehudit Rappoport, circa 2003

Kibbutzim are communal/socialist settlements particular to Israel. Kibbutz Be’eri is an interesting example of a Kibbutz that is still thriving while others are not. Perhaps it is because the founders embraced industrialization as an alternative subsistence to agriculture. Yehudit Rappoport, a founding member and my grandmother, is lending me her memories before they’re gone to Alzheimer’s. They are tampered with national narratives and it is sometimes difficult to separate the personal from the national in her repetitive nostalgics.

Here is a sample of videos in progress.

A Dallas Documentary | 1′00″ | 2007

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A Pan of Young Trees (1.0) | 1′00” | 2006

*Screened at the One Minute Film and Video Festival in Toronto, Canada, on November 22nd, 2006, receiving an honourable mention.

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A Pan of Young Trees; Kibbutz Be’eri (1.1) | 1′00” | 2007

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Talking with Rappoport; Conversations on Kibbutz Be’eri | 5′06” | 2007

Le Bureau des Questions was developed for the Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean in Bari, Italy between May 22nd – 31st 2008, with the support of the Israeli Center for Digital Art, Holon. Le Bureau is set up as an office which provides short-term services with long-term effects; its agents collect questions from one region about another, and thereafter travel to the destination to collect answers. In honour of the BJCEM Biennial, questions in Italy were collected for a soon-to-be established storefront in Israel, where answers were to be collected from Israelis within the span of one year.

While dialogue about Israel is often shrouded in political correctness and confusion, if not racism and prejudice, Le Bureau makes the non-judgmental assertion that no question is out of bounds. It affirms that not everyone has answers but everyone has questions.

The model of Art as Work, however problematic, forges the backbone of Le Bureau des Question, along with other public and relational art projects. Le Bureau, which is whole-heartedly an art-like endeavor, is also a service provider in the new cultural economy.

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LE BUREAU DES QUESTIONS OFFICIAL WEBSITE

OTHER ARTISTS FROM THE ISRAELI DELEGATION

WEB RADIO INTERVIEW ABOUT THE PIECE, PART 1, PART 2

The Interviews were filmed in Gemblangan Village, Indonesia, during ‘Perfurbance’ Urban Performance Art Festival in April, 2007.

Interested in the Indonesian system of mutual assistance and reciprocity (Gotong Royong), and its meaningfulness as an economic system not reliant on currency, I was interested in asking villagers Martina, Ponijan, Purwo, Bu and Hastoro if the system still exists and to let the conversations develop from there. In the spirit of reciprocity, the microphone was then handed to them to ask me questions about the culture I come from.

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Hastoro in interview

Festival director, Iwon Wijono, invited 20 international artists and 20 Indonesian artists to the festival focused on issues of urbanization in Indonesia. The third annual festival also focused on issues of community, privatization, and health care, and ran from April 25th – April 29th, 2007. Artists were hosted by Gemblangan’s families and were encouraged to make work with an emphasis on collaboration.

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The International Festival in the Context of Art: the Differences took place in Warsaw, Poland between September 28th – October 1st, 2006. Director, Jan Swidzinski, is known for his writings on ‘contextual art’ (as opposed to ‘conceptual art’) and the festival mandate was to explore those actions that occur in the name of art.

I was invited to the festival by Bruce Barber and joined by fellow Canadian invitees, Michael Fernandez and Kathlene Ritter. The festival was anchored in Warsaw, at the Mazowieckie Centrum Cultury i Sztuki, with satellite locations in Oronsko, Plock, Szydlowiec and Sokolow.

The Twins

A Collaboration with Michael Fernandez

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Two figures antagonize each other with competing placards – anglicized names vs. Polish names, Coca-cola vs. Pepsi, LSD vs. SLD (Democratic Left Alliance Party in Poland) – signaling the tides of Western influence in Poland. After the protest, the placards are picked up by the public who march together in the city.

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Promise and Fulfillment

By Maya Pasternak

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The performance is dictated by the book of the same title. The book Promise and Fulfillment is the story of Palestine from 1917 to 1949, written by Arthur Koestler. It consists of three parts, Background, Close-up and Perspective . The first part is a survey of the developments which led to the foundation of the State of Israel, “one of the most curious episodes in modern history.” The second part, Close-up, is meant to give a close and coloured view of the Jewish war and of everyday life in the new State. The third part, Perspective, is an attempt to present a comprehensive survey of the social and political structure, the cultural trends and future prospects of the Jewish State. The performance has two acts.

Promise: Of the book, Promise and Fulfillment (Hebrew edition), pages are ripped out of the spine and onto the streets of Poland until no more are attached. The act is violent and tragic and disperses the intimate pages to different ends of the court. The crowd is curious about the Hebrew script. ‘It’s Jewish!

Fulfillment: Every dispersed page is recollected and reunited with the crumbling spine of the once-whole book until every one has been recovered. The audience drops to its knees to aid in the recovery. The piece is over when the entire book has been returned to its jacket.

The “Differences” Press Release details participating artists.

A job working the Federal Canadian elections in 2004 is the raw material for looking into the politics of the office.  At the  center of political correctness is the anti-semitic dragon.

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Elections Canada Journal | Day 1

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Elections Canada Journal | Day 2

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Elections Canada Journal | Day 3

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Elections Canada Journal | Day 4

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Elections Canada Journal | Day 5

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Elections Canada Journal | Day 6

In Truth in the Name of Maya; a Year-long Non-performance, the idea of non-performance is founded on the rejection of the performances/artifices of everyday life, more so than on the development of a new type of performativity. It germinated from the writings of sociologist, Irving Goffman, who delineates between the behaviours of people “front stage” – in open view – and “backstage” – in private. My aim in the “non-performance” is to deconstruct the duality of private and public self that Goffman offers. The project shares with much of my work the focus on our identities as both actors of free will and actors in a historical context, as well as on performance as research, as a way to play with the variables of life.

The “Non-performance” is a project whose raw materials are those instances of suppressed feelings, polite asides, and insincere gestures which are used to uphold one’s ‘front stage’ appearance. One can imagine that ‘backstage’ we are all sitting picking our noses. The project was documented in the paper in three installments, each a month apart.

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Non-performance Document #1 / The Coast / detail

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Non-performance Document #2 / The Coast / detail

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Non-performance Documentation #3 / The Coast / detail