FRAGILITY
Galit Barak
Israel

The artworks feature red gravel stones arranged on a mesh net facing inwards. These stones were sourced from the area of Al-Kunayyisa, an Arab village that was occupied and ethnically cleansed in 1948. Today, the village’s ruins are difficult to locate, as they are surrounded by an industrial area.
Fragility emerges here as both material and emotional. The red gravel: small, breakable fragments, rests on a delicate mesh that barely holds their weight, echoing the precarious balance of coexistence and memory. This fragile structure mirrors the vulnerability of personal and collective narratives: how they can crumble or be rebuilt, how acknowledging the other’s pain exposes our own. The work embodies the fragile act of seeing, of allowing empathy to unsettle certainty and open the boundaries of belonging.
This piece from an ongoing series shifts the focus to explore new, fragile, but also joined narratives, to create a space to hold both narratives and opens up the possibility to reimagine a new future for living on the land.

Brooch « You Are Not Allowed To Hold All The Sorrow », 2024
27x43x260 mm / 28 gr
Stainless steel, gravel stones, sterling silver, cotton thread
Assembled

More « FRAGILITY »

Fragility – Jeanne-Sophie Aas / Norway

FRAGILITYJeanne-Sophie AasNorwayControlling fragility is the core of my practice. Working with glass feels like a relationship: a cooperation where we both have needs and limits. We discover and grow together, but we are also able to hurt each other. Hot glass needs...

Fragility – Cristina Celis / Mexico

FRAGILITYCristina CelisMexicoThe Last BreathFragility is the threshold where strength meets its limit, where existence reveals its most honest form.This work, made from weightless paper-thin ceramics, evokes a paradox: delicate yet tense, resilient yet on the verge of...

Fragility – Isabelle Busnel / France

FRAGILITYIsabelle BusnelFranceThis work looks at fragility through two brooches made from broken jewellery found in flea markets. Each piece is partly lost and incomplete, set in soft silicone and stitched with light punch needle embroidery. The pale blue and pink...

Fragility – Yasuko Kanno / Japan

FRAGILITYYasuko KannoJapanEven the most perfectly formed creation will one day perish. Glass and ceramics will shatter, metal will rust, and every living being will eventually face death. Although it often happens unexpectedly, in reality, it is predetermined from the...

Fragility – Sara Shahak / Israel

FRAGILITYSara ShahakIsraelBetween a glass bell and an iron pendant, a material tension arises that embodies fragility as an existential condition. The glass bell, functioning as a greenhouse, seeks to protect and preserve, yet it exposes the limits of protection and...

Fragility – Anne Blok / Netherlands

FRAGILITYAnne BlokNetherlandsThe fragile threads of memory Life is fragile; it is temporary and precious. This brooch tells the story of a young life, life in the bud and the rose that never reached full bloom. The brooch tells the story of a thirteen year-old girl....

Fragility – Agne Zaltauskaite / Lithuania

FRAGILITYAgne ZaltauskaiteLithuaniaIn my practice, I explore the hole as a metaphor for the unknown — a fragile space where certainty dissolves. To be within the unknown is to be exposed, vulnerable, and open to transformation.Not knowing, doubting, being uncertain —...

Fragility – Yael Ouliel / Israel

FRAGILITYYael OulielIsraelThe union of rusted iron and 18-karat gold reveals fragility as a fundamental dimension of matter and existence. The iron, slowly eroded by rust, bears witness to vulnerability and transience, while the gold remains intact, its value unveiled...

Fragility – Juan Riusech / Spain

FRAGILITYJuan RiusechSpainAnd if the most fragile thing was our society ? What could happen if we go back to the dark Mid Age ? Brooch “Medieval II”, 2024100 x 150 x 7 mm / 36 grPLA, steelHand 3D printed, constructedMore "FRAGILITY"

Fragility – Danni Xu / USA

FRAGILITYDanni XuUnited StatesThis body of work emerges from a personal moment of reckoning—where fragility was not an abstract idea, but a lived, shifting condition I needed to face. These pieces trace the intimate terrain of vulnerability: the quiet, unstable edges...