Yoav Zis

Worker’s Moshav

The series of photographs focuses on Sochnut houses in workers’ moshavim established by the Zionist settlement. These houses were created for agricultural workers outside the factory towns throughout Israel.
In the series, I chose similar perspective and distance from the houses, drawing a line between the plots’ borders and the act of photographing the houses. The border is a buffer of sorts, distinguishing between the life of the individual and the details on the house’s façade and the photographer. This principle underscores the tension between protecting the individual’s rights to privacy and freedom of property.
Over the years, without supervision and regulation, large gaps started to form between the different houses alongside chaos in the public and private space. The project looks at the housing culture that developed in the Israeli reality. This housing culture advocates lax regulation and manifests social power relations and economic gaps underlying the problems in the social space. The lack of regulation and supervision produces a plethora of disturbances to those who use the public sphere, from obstacles on sidewalks to government bureaucratic procedures.