Israel artist builds mock kibbutz in heart of Polish capital

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2009

WARSAW (AFP) — Construction of a mock Israeli kibbutz complete with fencing and watchtower, began Monday in the heart of the Polish capital Warsaw.

The unprecedented art installation is the brainchild of Israeli video artist Yael Bartana and is to serve as the set of the second in her trilogy of films focused on the symbolic revival of Jewish life in Poland after the Holocaust.

While Bartana usually focuses on Israeli-Palestinian issues, the current project uses imagery from the Middle East to address the history of Polish Jews.

"In this film we are concentrating on the moment when actually the Jews are coming actually back to Poland," Bartana told AFP Monday on the site of the kibbutz set.

Kibbutz are collective communities based on agriculture, originally...