Public Movement | Positions Capture the Flag

Since its establishment in 2006, Public Movement has staged performative works that explore social choreographies, political displays, and forms of civic memory at museums and art venues in Israel and worldwide. The public space, the museum, and state institutions serve as the group’s basis for research and action, allowing it to take a deep look at their underlying forces, mechanisms, and identities —and at the conflict they hold. The members of Public Movement are inspired by the collective potential: “The political and aesthetic possibilities inherent in a group of people working together.”
In the exhibition at the Tel Aviv-Yafo City Museum, Public Movement will perform two actions that constitute a civic exercise in identification and rivalry: “Positions (Tel Aviv- Yafo City Museum, 2025-6)” and “Capture the Flag.”
The action “Positions (Tel Aviv-Yafo City Museum, 2025-6)” has already been performed in two different iterations, each tailored to a specific location. The current version will take place in Bialik Square several times throughout the exhibition. In this action, two temporary blocks of people repeatedly form around declarations that express a civic position, worldview, preference, inclination, fact, or moral claim. The action “Capture the Flag” (2026), which will debut in this exhibition, is based on a familiar children and teen’s game. Two rival groups will be invited to move together throughout the museum while practicing infiltration, trespassing, collaboration, and stealth. Both actions explore the overt and covert conflicts at play in the encounter between acquaintances and strangers in the city and at the museum.