The light cast by the projector fails to illuminate the darkness, offering no solace. Despite the human presence of the routine military patrol, the areas exposed by its light resemble deserted, timeworn, bare and fragile no man’s lands. Fantastical figures from the fairytale and legend world, such as tin soldiers and the centaur traversing the woods, penetrate Shvil’s concrete local world. The emergence of these creatures from the darkness reinforces the fragility of the border which functions as a threshold. The awesome solitude elicited in the viewer facing the darkness alone oscillates between the adult experience of a soldier guarding a world whose existence appears to be hanging by a thread and the childhood experience of fairytales and mythology.

Lior Shvil was born in Israel, 1971. Lives and works in Tel Aviv.

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