Anne Simin Shitrit's and Moshe Roas's duo exhibition, "Springs," marks two years since the establishment of Bezalel Gallery for Contemporary Art. The gallery's activity is founded on the principle that artists do not operate in isolation from their immediate surroundings, and are always influenced by the intellectual, political, ideological, moral, and cultural climate of the time and place. This position is re-validated in this exhibition, in which both artists respond to the current geopolitical situation, while relating to their personal biographies, setting out to outline a realm of identity and boundaries in the territories in which they create, and addressing the dynamic formation of local culture and its diverse visual manifestations. As an exhibition space in an academic institution, Bezalel Gallery for Contemporary Art serves as a platform for the presentation of new and original bodies of work by local artists in annual group (or two-person) exhibitions. In addition, once a year the gallery stages one solo exhibition based on in-depth research into the work archive of a senior local female artist, offering a new interpretation of it. The duo exhibition "Springs" spans photography and text works (Simin Shitrit) alongside sculptures (Roas). The works were commissioned and produced especially for the show, and are the result of an ongoing dialogue between the two participating artists. Work on the exhibition began before the outbreak of the Gaza war, as described by Roas: "Back then, identities, worldviews, and voices clashed head-on with an unprecedented intensity. These conflicts were embodied in my work in matter, form, and combinations. The October 7 events caused a shift; the sense of disintegration emphasized the material contradictions between the local elements that make up the sculptures during the work process in the studio." Engaging in sculpture, installation, and printmaking, Moshe Roas (b. Safed, 1981) explores the transience of matter and the presence of time as a transformative potential. Many of his works are inspired by traditional crafts and textiles, reflecting his interest in processes of deconstruction and re-stitching. Through his intimate engagement with the material, he probes existential questions pertaining to disintegration and reintegration. Anne Simin Shitrit (b. Jerusalem, 1994) conducts visual research through the medium of photography. She grew up in an ultra-Orthodox community, in an anti-Zionist Moroccan-Iranian family. Her work emerges from personal experience, while documenting the places she visits and the people she encounters as part of her daily routine. "The subjects and objects of my photographs," she attests, "range between adolescence and adulthood, oscillating between different gender perspectives and hybrid identities; they depart from the perspective of a woman who observes her surroundings with passion and curiosity." The title of the exhibition, "Springs," gives rise to two interrelated readings that stem from one another: on the one hand, a spring is a social meeting place, a source of life and purity; on the other hand, it has been the focus of political tension and bloody feuds over territory since biblical times to this very day. Referring to this twofold meaning, both artists act as "hunters." Simin Shitrit's camera perpetuates young men and sites in the Palestinian Authority and in Jerusalem's outlying areas. Her works are charged by the power of photography as evidence, as per Susan Sontag, who maintained that the photograph is also a proof taken directly from reality, thanks to its mimetic nature. The works explore familiar monolithic definitions and visual stereotypes, striving to introduce a more open exegetic space. Roas collects worn out objects and weather worn organic materials from all over the country, which are subsequently manipulated and reconstructed in his studio. Some of them resemble phallic objects and weapons. His work allows time and duration to become a central focus: the act of nature's brush, which is embodied, for example, in trunks ejected from the spring, is juxtaposed with a piece of embroidery—a product of local culture weathered by time. The reference to representations of curbed violence, whether by the forces of nature or by man, serves as a foothold for delving into the works of both artists. Prof. Dor Guez, curator of the exhibition