The Journey to Floor Island

2021
Site – specific installation
White cement, Aggregates and quartz silica sand

Curation, artistic guidance and text: Dr. Tal Frenkel Alroy

The journey to Floor Island is an exhibition based on historical, technological, experiential and material research. The work on the exhibition began before the Corona outburst and became more relevant during the home seclusion. During the working process of the exhibition, made from within the house and inside the house, Talia searched for the material which the dream of the Israeli home is made of. She found it in the Terrazzo floor tiles. From here evolved a complex and beautiful hand work. Talia presents in the exhibition tiles which she produced in a craftwork in an improvised workshop that she built at home. To the traditional Terrazzo mixture, which she bought from the ‘Sela’ tile factory – the last tile factory in the country which is currently facing shut down – she has added materials from the domestic space.
The Terrazzo, which is familiar from every home in Israel, echoes many memories: the memory of technology that was invented in Venice in the 16th century; memories from the British Mandate, with which Terrazzo arrived in the country, childhood memories from the 60s 70s and 80s, years in which it became popular in the public as well as private spaces; the memory of the Palestinian workers who came from the occupied territories; the memory of the marble tiles that were imported in the past decades from various countries in Europe. If the home is a homeland, the Israeli Terrazzo is its perplexed land.
In these days, the last Terrazzo factory in the country is shutting down after forty years of work. This event, that symbolizes the end of this small industry, was introduced into the exhibition and became another layer of depth. What is the floor of a home? What is a floor as a material for dreaming, creation and search for identity? What is a home that turns into a workshop? And what is a craft that echoes an Israeli industry, which last factory is about to shut down? “The Journey to the Floor Island” is a journey to the lower layer of the Israeli home, to the materials and traces that were inscribed in the memory, to an industry that is already dreaming its past.