Asad Azi Untitled, 2025

The painting brings together two charged images of home and memory. One section features patterns of painted floor tiles, associated with Jaffa and Palestinian homes - a material remnant of domestic space and local culture. Given this association, the group of figures in the other section of the painting appears at first glance to depict a scene of expulsion or displacement. In fact, however, they originate in a historical photograph documenting the immigration of Yemenite Jews to Israel in the early days of the State.
The encounter between these two visual sources creates not only a space where memories and diverse historical narratives coexist, but also a reflection on stasis and movement: the stable floor tiles, representing the home that is (perhaps) standing intact, set against the figures embodying movement, migration, the end of an era or a new beginning. This juxtaposition and connection allows Azi to examine how images become charged with changing meanings, depending on the context in which they are read. The work offers a view of Jaffa as a space where parallel histories, material memories and migration stories meet, intersect and delineate the city not as a cohesive, continuous narrative, but as a multi-layered composite of identity and memory.