Hanan Shafir – Photography

"As the Evening Rolls In"

Artist wall in Sela Auditorium

Children are born, plants sprout, and, reaching maturity, both bloom — radiant and full of a passion to the other sex, which drives them to pass on their characteristics and resources to the next generation. Full bloom is life’s most vibrant, alluring, and intense period. But once this purpose is fulfilled, flowers — like humans — begin to fade. Tissues lose their tension, forms soften, wrinkle, and bow. Often, their colors linger, but the slackening is already a quiet whisper of the journey’s ending.

Hanan Shafir turns his lens to this weary stage in hibiscus flowers — so often admired in their full glory. The sharpness and focus of his photographs compel us to look directly at what we might prefer to ignore: The fatigue, which, in a way, marks the beginning of the end.

Yaakov Shabtai poignantly captured this sentiment in his poem The Boys Are Already Tired (known for Yohanan Zarai’s melody and The Dudaim’s performance):

The sun has set again
In the western sky.
Only somber memories remain on the battlefield.
And over them, a mound of earth and sand,
The evening rises again, just like yesterday.

But the boys are already tired, tired
But the boys are already tired.

…

The Boys Are Already Tired

Lyrics by Yaakov Shabtai

Music by Yohanan Zarai

Performed by: The Dudaim