Alma Mater by Yuval Avital – Israel Museum

YUVAL AVITAL: ALMA MATER

curated by Talia Amar, Curator of Interdisciplinary Art of the Museum

Light installation by Enzo Catellani

Sound space design by Architettura Sonora and B&C Speaers

Video art featuring Liliana Cosi and Oriella Dorella

The Israel Museum, Jerusalem

Opening: December 17, 2024 – on view until June, 2025

Alma Mater: Embodying the spirit of the archetypal “Great Mother,” artist and musician Yuval Avital’s monumental icon-sonic, video, and light installation envelops visitors in a metaphorical womb and offers hope and reconnection.

This presentation is a new site-specific adaptation created especially for the Israel Museum. Avital’s immersive installation is presented on the occasion of the Museum’s upcoming 60th anniversary and as a kind of prelude to the Museum’s exhibition on sound in art, opening in 2025 and also curated by Amar.

Born in Jerusalem in 1977 and living in Milan, Yuval Avital is considered one of the most polyhedric artists of Italy, working across diverse media – from paintings to large-scale immersive cross-media installations, with a strong emphasis on sound. His works have been presented in prominent museums, biennials, art foundations, and theaters worldwide.

Inspired by the archetype of the Great Mother, Alma Mater unites the voices and images of grandmothers from around the world, including Israel’s diverse ethnic communities, the Jewish diaspora, and even the artist’s own grandmothers.

First unveiled in Milan as one of the main art events of EXPO 2015, Alma Mater is the largest sound installation ever made in Italy to date. In that first presentation, over 140 speakers spread across 1,200 square meters created an immersive experience that blended sound, visuals, technology, and design to evoke the ancient symbol of motherhood.

Alma Mater unites Avital’s two foremost creative signatures – his immersive installations that create detailed experiential microcosms and his relations to sound, both as an artist and as a composer. Numerous fragments of recorded voices of elderly women from all over the world and from different periods emerge from a “sonic forest”: chants, songs, whispers, prayers, fairy tales, lullabies, and mantras, combined with sounds associated with the female archetype in nature – seismic vibrations, volcanoes, ocean sounds, and water drops, whose signals have been digitally processed to become audible to the human ear. The installation includes contributions of many sound archives from all over the globe, bringing a wide array of cultures and highlighting universal themes of motherhood, heritage, grace, and identity. Through meticulous layering and electronic refinement, Avital creates a sonic mosaic that transforms the otherwise neutral loudspeakers into profound and intimate vessels of expression.

The Israel Museum is highly meaningful for the artist. Although now based in Milan, Yuval Avital was born in Jerusalem, and it was at the Museum that he first encountered art in all its forms – from prehistoric artifacts to cutting-edge works. This connection inspired him to create a new, site-specific version of Alma Mater, designed in dialogue with the Museum’s architecture and collection. In this new version, special attention has been given to songs and voices from the National Sound Archive of the National Library of Israel, and it features Jewish diaspora chants, pioneer songs from Rosh Pina, Bedouin wedding chants, and Arab funeral songs from the Galilee. This selection enriches Alma Mater’s role as a space for creating bridges and for reflection, and the Museum installation invites visitors to sit or lie down on cushions placed throughout the space, transforming the experience into one of meditation and contemplation.

At the heart of this site-specific installation stands one of the Museum’s most treasured artifacts – the 233,000-year-old female figurine from Berekhat Ram, regarded as the world’s oldest prehistoric artwork ever found. This ancient female figurine, crafted by an extinct human species, links ancient and modern voices and amplifies Alma Mater’s message of timeless connection.

Avital’s work fosters collaboration and dialogue with master artisans, designers, and performers.

The “forest” of loudspeakers includes suspended clusters of advanced transducers by B&C Speakers, alongside “trees” of signal cables connected to skillfully crafted clay-sphere loudspeakers by Architettura Sonora – both partners from the original 2015 installation. At the Israel Museum, those spheres are also joined by loudspeakers placed inside concrete vessels, which resonate with the modern significance of cement in Israel. Complementing the layered polyphonic soundscape, Enzo Catellani – one of Italy’s leading light designers – created luminous golden disks that “breathe” in perfect sync with the sound, symbolizing holiness through their rounded shapes and reflective materials. Two video projections featuring La Scala ballet étoiles Oriella Dorella and Liliana Cosi, along with animated “postcards” of grandmothers from diverse archives worldwide (including Avital’s own grandmothers), add a further dimension of wisdom, grace, and tenderness to this immersive installation.

In this historical moment, the installation carries a profound message of healing, universality, and re-humanization. Through the collective strength of maternal voices and the transformative power of art, Alma Mater transcends cultural divisions and barriers, offering an experience of shared humanity and the nurturing essence that connects us all.

The exhibition was made possible by the donors to the Museum’s Exhibition Fund: Claudia Davidoff, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in memory of Ruth and Leon Davidoff; Hanno D. Mott, New York; the Nash Family Foundation, New York; and an anonymous donor.

With the support and collaboration of BUILDING, Milan

Technical programming, synchronization, and installation at the Israel Museum in collaboration with OFFBiT Collective, Beersheba.