“Once I was a House” – Caesarea Israel, December 2012 – my experience as a participating artist – Debi Oulu

When I first heard of the project I was so excited. It was for projects like these that I decided to become an artist; A dynamic site specific art project where artists and curators work together to create something new and creative.

On a rainy Saturday, I dragged my good friend Michael out of his house to drive with me out to Caesarea to see the house and to meet with the curators. As soon as I walked in, I could feel the creative juices flowing, and the inspiration that the house itself gave to my ideas. I met with curator Jennifer Navva Milliken, and started telling her some of my ideas. I felt an immediate click with her and the project.

After submitting a few proposals, the one I wanted to do most was the one accepted. It was perhaps the least flamboyant of all the ideas, and definitely the most conceptual. It had to do with the memories that are contained in the walls of the home.

Are memories something visible? Tangent? Or are they whips of smoke that twirl through our heads? The challenge was how to make a site specific project about Memories – something that is, yet isn’t really there.

That was when I came up with the concept of “traces of live memories” – like in a murder case when a body is found its outline is traced and the body is taken away -Much like our memories. From here the concept continued – these “traces of memories” would be scattered throughout the house and even incorporated within other peoples art rooms; A true collaboration with other artists.

Looking back at the project, I feel that we needed to work harder to incorporate our pieces with other projects. A few artists whom we spoke to were not interested in collaborating as it would mix too much with their installation. Afterwards, however we meet some more that would have welcomed the collaboration.

All in all however, I learned a lot about working with many artists, curators, and my dear partner in crime Avivit Ben-Zur. I met many interesting artists who I hope to keep connected with and maybe to work with on further projects.

All in all, it was a very exciting and welcoming experience.

Pictures from the event: