Esther Shalev-Gerz

Born 1948 in Vilnius, Lithuania, Esther Shalev-Gerz grew up in Israel, and now lives in Paris. For more than 20 years she has been developing work centered on questions associated with the construction of memory, whether personal or collective. Her reinterpretation of history is firmly anchored in the present of her protagonists : The majority of her works are created in dialogue with people – be they the inhabitants of a specific place, or the witnesses of a particular event. Thus the past is always interpreted through the present of those who remember it, or work with its relics. Through different stories, in the gap between listening and telling, and by means of her installations, Esther Shalev-Gerz creates new spaces to tackle the questions of recollection, memory, bearing witness, and our relationship to history.