Hugs
Ruti Sela
Curator: Lea Mauas (Sala-manca)
24.7.25-26.9.25
The inception of this exhibition was Ruti Sela’s desire to re-enact her performance, “Hugs,” filmed in Jerusalem in 1999. The outcome forms the central artwork at the exhibition in which the artist wanders through the streets of Jerusalem to collect hugs from strangers. In the new video, made 25 years after the original, comprises sound, once again Sela invites people on the street to hug her. This essentially innocent action reflects the many changes that the western part of Jerusalem underwent: the streets, the residents, the attitude to technology and to photography (made in the current era of constant documentation, during the terrible “war of images” that has become even more extreme since October 7th. In Sela’s video, the scenes pause within the moment in contrast to the constant transformations characterizing social media.
Most of Ruti Sela’s works are documentary videos which examine and expose borderlines and power relations within the medium. There is an awareness of the camera’s presence, yet within the semi-staged situations she films, Sela succeeds in creating moments of intimacy revealing a great deal of information about the relationships and the society in which she acts. In most of her works, she is the cinematographer who is present, participating, and advancing the plot as it develops both vis à vis and together with those she films.
In Hugs, 2025, Sela faces the camera throughout, instead of holding it. She is perhaps herself, or maybe she is a character asking for a hug from passersby. This action forms a complex picture of the city and its residents. Jerusalem of 1999 and Jerusalem of 2025: What are the human and technological changes that took place? How does the camera’s presence impact the work? What are the conversations conducted during a tiny yet intimate moment in Jerusalem of an unending war?
On view are three earlier video works: Hugs, the original 1999 video filmed in the streets of Jerusalem, with no sound and no text besides body language. Hugs #2 (2017), features the artist’s son being hugged in his kindergarten on his birthday. The teacher seems to be asking/telling the children to hug the boy, the rhythm and tone of her voice leaving both parties no option of rejecting the closeness. The third work is Therms and Conditions (2022), made in collaboration with Maayan Amir, filmed in infrared thermography through the scope of a weapon in an attempt to document on film traces of human body heat generated by strangers rubbing hands on the artists’ bodies. The gun and the camera become one, but here the scope is not used to prepare for a kill but to document a moment of closeness between strangers, contact that was prohibited during the pandemic.
This group of works displayed at the Mamuta Art & Research Center facilitates a space of delicate contemplation of interpersonal connections, contact, and consent, the power relations between photographer and photographed, and the impotence when faced with a choice, and the situation in Israeli society over the past quarter of a century.
The exhibition is supported by the Ostrovsky Family Fund, Outset, Mifal HaPais Council and the Jerusalem Municipality’s Culture Administration.
Mamuta Art & Research Center | Artistic Director: Lea Mauas | Producer: Naama Mokady | Project Manager: Or Mai | Assistant Producer: Or Aloni | Installation: Itamar Mevorach | Text Editor: Ronit Rosenthal | Arabic translation: Anwar Ben Badis | English translation: Y. Appleton | Graphic Designer: Maya Shleifer
Opening hours: Tue-Wed 18:00-13:00, Thur 18:00-12:00, Fri 14:00-10:00
Closing: 26.9.25