ג׳ניה קריסJenia Kris

מיצבים Installations

Land art, light and built structures, 2012 to 2019, in Jerusalem, Sweden and Italy. The recurring subject is the city as a changing physical object: a horizon line forced to change, a dock drained decades ago, a crafts school demolished to make room for a tower.

Livingroom Under the Highway

2015Light installation, team project

A team project headed by architect Reinhard Germer. The installation sets a warm and hospitable living room into rough terrain with a river, under an active city highway. Made during the Lights in Alingsås festival, Sweden.

  • A concrete underpass lit deep red, with tall standing lamps in shallow water and their reflections running back into the dark.
  • The same lit underpass seen from the riverbank through overhanging branches, the foliage picked out in blue.

Cylinder in Talpiot

2015Ackershtein cement bricks, 2 m x 40 cm

A landscape work in Jerusalem, inspired by the forced processes that change the horizon line.

  • A column of stacked cement bricks standing on broken ground at dusk, with new apartment towers and a crane behind it.
  • The brick column close up against a pale sky, construction cranes rising behind the excavated site.

La Conca

2018Light installation, team project

A team project under the leadership of architect Jan Ejhed. The element stands in the middle of a plaza in the city centre, set there to evoke a ship like the ones that sailed the dock before it was drained a few decades ago. Made during the Luci in Riviera workshop in Dolo, Veneto, Italy.

Photographs by Jenia Kris (left), Johanna Enger (upper right) and Marco Campus (lower right)

  • Three views of the installation: the canal and bell tower at night, the lit form beside a wall by day, and the plaza at night with people gathered around it.

The Jerusalem Beehive

2016-2017Earth building

The result of cooperation between two groups working as part of the Muslala community. Designed by Jenia with professional assistance from Dafna Yalon to meet the standards of the Profolis bee centre, for a growing bee community in the middle of the city. Built from earth over the winter.

  • A patterned earthen beehive vessel hung inside a peaked wooden frame, climbing plants around its base.
  • The beehive in its rooftop garden behind a carved wooden sign reading The Jerusalem Beehive, with people sitting beyond it.

Structure Forming a Fish Bone Shape

2016Limestone

A landscape work in Jerusalem, inspired by the film Leviathan.

  • Pale limestone blocks set in a long line across a green hillside, a low building and tower behind under grey cloud.
  • A wider view of the same stone line running down the slope, with city buildings and construction cranes in the mist.

Paraphrase

2014Stone, fire

A tumulus built from stones on a route surrounding the city, then fired, emphasising the primordial force. Presented at the Bezalel Academy graduation exhibition in 2014 and at a solo exhibition in Jerusalem in 2016.

  • A cairn of stacked stones burning on a bare hillside in daylight, an electricity pylon and hills behind.
  • The same cairn burning at night, its stones glowing from within, the lights of the city strung along the ridge above.

Landscape, Line in Mount Scopus

2012Tiles

A line of tiles laid into the slope of Mount Scopus.

  • White tiles scattered in a broad line through dry grass on a wooded slope, a low stone wall and pines beyond.

Celestial Snow

2014Video projection on cast ceramic forms

Video projected onto cast ceramic forms.

  • Cast ceramic blocks arranged on a dark floor and lit from within, glowing pale gold against the black.

מסע Masa

2018Copper, wood, stone, fabric and iron, set into the wall

Made together with Lola Gaynutdinova. Five materials are set into the inner wall of the Clal building, one for each of the five departments of the crafts school that stood here before the modern building was put up. Masa, Hebrew for journey, was presented during the ArtBNB residency in Jerusalem in 2018 and remains there as a permanent exhibition.

  • A spiral relief set into a pale wall, its arcs made of copper, dark stone, wood and woven fabric.
  • The spiral relief seen along a daylit corridor of the Clal building, a curved bench beneath it.

Greek Church in Abu Tor, Lighting Proposal

2019Lighting proposal

Chosen among several sites to be exhibited at the Hebrew University as part of PHOTO-VOICE, a local initiative of Jerusalem residents to catalyse change in the area around them.

  • Before: the church gate and its long stone wall on an overcast day, unlit.
  • The proposal: the same wall washed with warm light from below, pools of it running down the lane past the gate.