Eyal Gaziel (EyalGaziel)

My name is Eyal Gaziel. I am a photographer and for the past seven years I have been working on a project I named: Childhood Memories.
I was born and raised in a small peripheral, nameless neighborhood. This was my entire world. When I was growing up, everything seemed to me crystal clear and organized, and every person had a fixed role: in those days, I could not imagine that Tikva, my babysitter, was a prostitute. I never realized that she wasn't waiting for bus number 75, which would never arrive, but that actually it was her 'spot' where she waited for her 'clients'. In those days, I couldn’t imagine that Herzfeld, the crazy guy from down the street, who played with us all the time, was not simply a nice grown up friend, but a mental patient who was not under care and treatment.
I wanted to tell a story about a certain place, but found myself drawn to the life stories of those people who populated it; those heroes of my childhood who played a central role in my life and still do. People who once looked so very big and strong and now appear weak, vulnerable and frail.
The staged photography - which utilizes people from my neighborhood as my actors - enables me to touch the exposed roots of my identity. It is an inner wondering between one character and another, between one story and the other at different stations on my journey back home. I chose to return to the old places that are populated with familiar passersby. I came to them from a position of strength, from behind a camera with a production crew, but left with humility.
Even though this is a staged photography project, I view it as a kind of documentation. More than recording the place and time, it is a testimony as to who I am today, vulnerable and weak as they are, and like them, part of this place – my childhood neighborhood.

artdoxa.com/EyalGaziel