Gergely László/Tehnica Schweiz - The Collective Man

My friend and fellow POC, Gergely László is offering a special edition of his forthcoming book The Collective Man. The book is being published by Fotohof in cooperation with the Lumen Foundation.

The Collecive Man is the intircate story of the Yad Hanna Kibbutz established in 1950 in Israel which became the best known communist kibbutz in Israel. Founded in part by relatives of Gergely, he began working on a visual archive of old photographs, new photographs, staged costumes and mixed media images about the place and the people.

He has collaborated with Katarina Sevic to create costumes based on found images and symbols from the archives.

While working on the photo archive, I became interested in the pictures taken at the Jewish carnival celebrations of Purim. I separately collected all photos that had to do with Purim plays between the 1950s and the 1990s: costumes, props, stage sets, stages and sketches. Purim was also a very important social event in the Yad Hanna community, where, similarly to many other kibbutzim, it was held without its traditionally religious elements. Purim as a celebration, in this form, disappeared by the 90s as the community dissolved and communal spaces lost their function.

Based on my research, The Collective Man, a sketch in seven scenes, tells the story of a community in continuous struggle with sharing and living together. This book attempts to unfold the sketch and the sources it is based on.