Fresh Updates

Body Modification and Tattoos in Africa and the Middle East | By Yasmine Bergner

It is possible that the practice of body adornment dates back approximately 100,000 years, or even earlier. Shells and bone tools discovered in Blombos Cave were found containing remnants of pigment made from red ochre. Archaeologists believe that the cave may have served as a workshop for the preparation of pigments.

Awakening – In Her Savior’s Arms | Performance by Yasmine Bergner

The experience of the work is highly aesthetic, like painterly aesthetics returning to material form. We feel both the sense of subjugation and the sense of joy and revelation, and we journey with the artist with the long hair through the female odyssey—a slow and precise return, leaving no detail forgotten, as the knowledge she has processed through her long practice is etched into us, like the tattoos on Yasmin Bergner’s body.

The Murder of the Philosopher Hypatia and the History of Misogyny | By Yasmine Bergner

In the spring of 415 AD, a pagan noblewoman emerged from the lecture hall attached to the Great Library of Alexandria and called for her carriage to be brought so that she could drive herself home. Many educated pagan women enjoyed high social and academic status at the time, but Hypatia was one of the few who traveled independently in a carriage that belonged to her.

Mark of Shame & Symbol of Protection | Article By Yasmine Bergner

Currently, a fascinating exhibition is being displayed at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, curated by Haim Maor (curator of the university galleries) in collaboration with students in the curatorial course, entitled “Portraits of Cain – Representations of Others in Contemporary Art in Israel.”

Ancient Future | The Great Initiation Journey | Article by Yasmine Bergner

The myth relating to the powers of creation has always been an inseparable part of our lives. The trinity of myth-ritual-sacred, which recurs frequently in the cultures of the world (as the fascinating research of Mircea Eliade shows), today finds ancient and new ways of expression in a developing global movement of transformative festivals.

Rebooting the Swastika | Article by Yasmine Bergner

The deep wounds left by the Holocaust and World War II have cemented the swastika in our consciousness as an image that symbolizes satanic evil, racism, and fascism, despite the symbol’s innocence. Seven decades after the Holocaust, the swastika is still one of the most despised and vilified symbols.

Body Reclamation of the Symbol | Article by Yasmine Bergner

Until not long ago, the art world ignored the field of tattooing, excluding it and labeling it as primitive and inferior, but in recent years more and more artists have been using tattooing as a practice, as a symbol, or as an artistic act.