East Central Gallery is going to host the first London solo exhibition by photographer David Adika. Titled “Oululu”, the exhibition opens to the public on 20th November, and runs until 23rd December. Oululu will present some twenty photographs and two prints, which will be displayed in the different rooms of the gallery as a complex installation by the artist. The images vary in sizes and will either standalone or be grouped, on pastel coloured walls. East Central Gallery is located at 23 Bateman’s Row, London EC2A 3HH.

Press Release

A solo show by Israeli photographer David Adika

East Central Gallery 20th November – 23rd December
PV 19th November
6.30 – 8.30 pm

East Central Gallery is pleased to present Oululu, the first London solo exhibition by the acclaimed Israeli photographer David Adika.

Adika is known for his poignant and complex examinations of Israeli domestic space, in which he observes the tension between the two main Jewish ethnic groups, the Ashkenazi Jews and the Sephardic Jews. For his new body of work on show in this exhibition, Adika has widened his focus to observe similarities and differences between the Israeli Jew and the Israeli Arab, as well as those between Israel and its neighbours.

Many of the images were collected during the artist’s regular wandering of the streets of Jewish and Arab cities and villages in Israel. Some are of people and objects he met or picked-up along the way, within Israel and beyond it, in the surrounding Middle East. Long stays in different European cities have provided Adika with an opportunity to meet some of his neighbours/’enemies’ on neutral ground.

The exhibition will present some twenty photographs and two prints, which will be displayed in the different rooms of the gallery as a complex installation by the artist. The images vary in sizes and will either standalone or be grouped, on pastel coloured walls.

In Arabic, the name of the exhibition, Oululu means Tell Him. It is a name of a song by the classic Arab singer Abdel Halim Hafez. David Adika has childhood memories in which his grandmother sang this song. As part of an earlier Zionist dogma, new Jewish immigrants in Palestine, and then in Israel, were discouraged from speaking their original mother tongues. Within the story of the Israeli-Arab conflict, the usage of Arabic was even more contentious. The title therefore suggests a secret world, its ambiguity of meaning enhanced by the fact that this love song is sung by one man to another.

Every Monkey is a Gazelle in Its Mother’s Eyes, a newly-published book combining the last two solo exhibitions by David Adika will be available at the gallery.

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