Transitionwear - Wearing Wandering

Migration and emigration are processes that encompass painful experiences of disengagement and denial. During the process and after its completion, the return to cultures or identities of origin can seem impossible. Clothing has the power to blur identity and cultural loyalty; to challenge existing conditions; to display foreignness from “here” on the one hand, while reflecting a belonging to “there” on the other.
Using outfits that highlight transition and bear witness to the rites of passage, while challenging its form, this body of work manifests the ability to disconnect and unravel the concept of a singular narrative, and treat migration as a hostel – a permanent temporary condition unlike any other.
Shirel Abergel touches on the subject of unhoused people, considering the state of wandering as a fixed reality. In Nicole Khayat’s work we see wandering as a forced social condition (such as in cases of interreligious marriage). Miklal Daoud, born in Southern Lebanon and forced to emigrate to Israel with her family, creates shards of memories that can also be seen in the work of Ayat Jabara as she visits shelters for displaced persons, and the work of Yuval Fine – who contemplates the idea of the wandering Jew following the events of October 7th. Raghad Daher and Shanty Aizenberg present transitional states as temporary conditions that formulate their own dimension of time and space.