Mechizah (Separation)

Consider space as a negotiated reality, as activated by the performance of people within that space. A Jewish space, then, with it’s binary-gender specific laws, produces particularly gendered spaces.

The mechizah is perhaps the most obvious rendering of the production of Jewish gendered space; it is a barrier produced by Jews for Jewish practice, to restrict contact between men and women in places of worship.

In order to survive as post-binary gendered in such a space, a person has to be able to negotiate binary genders on a spatial level, to understand what is a hostile geography to the physical, emotional and social body.

The mechizah is placed at the entrance to the gallery space so that visitors must choose a (gendered) side in order to view (or not view) the rest of the work.

Medium: wood, cloth, video projection