Sweating Sweet

Orit Raff The video Sweating Sweet shows the artist walking slowly, barefoot, on the beach, along the coastline. She is wearing a white pinafore. She takes sugar from the pocket of her pinafore that she scatters into the saltwater. The pocket with the sugar becomes an integral part of her stomach, the sugar a product of her body and her work. Of course,the attempt to turn the salty seawaterinto sweet water fit for drinking and irrigation fails. Freshwater is an extremely scarce resource in an arid country, and her attempt to “repair” the sea, to deconstruct a given situation, is a Sisyphean task doomed to failure. Every wave breaking upon the beach “corrects” the disturbance she creates. In her works, Raff sets out to change states of aggregation and subvert the laws of nature via repetitious ritualistic acts.