Staccato (from the Italian) is a musical term meaning “detached” or “separated.” In musical notation, staccato indicates that notes should be played with separation, so that part of the note’s allotted duration is replaced by silence. Staccato sounds are short and clipped, yet the marking does not affect the overall tempo of the music.

The exhibition Staccato presents a distillation of works by five recent graduates from the Photography Department at Musrara School in Jerusalem. The show seeks to explore points of intersection between the works of these young artists, forming from these fragments a structure that, while disjointed, becomes cohesive in its overall presence—much like in staccato, where the notes are separated in essence, yet together construct a complete composition.

The timing and setting of the exhibition frame the works within a new context, revealing creative processes and raising questions about the artist’s stance, position, and physical engagement within the work. The featured works are marked by the physical presence of the artists—not as classic self-portraits, but as central or secondary players, hidden or exposed, acting as intermediaries within the photographic narrative.

The raw materials of the participating artists are drawn from personal biography, daily life, and imagined spaces. Their creative environments are domestic and often resource-limited. In her video work Snow / City of Cats, Michal Shaashua documents a real-time struggle for survival amid bureaucracy and existential challenges in both private and public spaces. In Green Flower, Miriam Naeh presents the domestic space as a fragile stage—a performance in which the body attempts to transform into an object or a still life.

Other participating artists also use their bodies as both object and instrument of experimentation within the scene. Tal Perez presents a photographic series titled Ma’at, which holds within it riddles and clues for decoding the image. His presence in the scene becomes an additional hint, transforming into a metaphysical reflection. In Measurement #1 (breathing), Amanda Kathleen returns to the tradition of photography, turning herself into an object for the measurement and observation of breath. Karin Shabtai’s works are photographed in nostalgic outdoor settings (Jerusalem), where the landscape reflects her personal, biographical narrative. These works sustain a dialogue between inner and outer worlds, between the personal and the collective.

The artists in this exhibition engage not only in documenting actions but also in deconstructing them, moving beyond the image as a final product. This exhibition aims to blur the boundaries between documentary and staged photography, between still images and video, and between interior and exterior.