Pirsky & HayatIsrael

ABOUT

Photography duo Anna Hayat and Slava Pirsky are Russian born artists who immigrated to Israel in the 90’s.

Anna Hayat studied photography in the Hadassah College, Jerusalem (1997-2001) and Slava Pirsky completed his art education in a number of Russian institutions. They have been working together since 1999.

Their work is photographed in a large format on Polaroid films, from which are developed a negative and positive momentarily after the shot. The chemicals left on the face of the negative at the end of the development process, leave a map of stains and marks, which changes from one negative to the other. This way, the action of controlled photography clears way for the random stains, adding a picturesque volume to the piece. Although this process damages the crisp quality of the image itself, it preserves the magic of analog photography and gives back some of the aura that was attached to it when it was first seen.

Pirsky & Hayat works have won numerous prizes, including the Polaroid International Photography Award and IPA Award for portrait photography from the annual World Press Photo exhibition in Israel.

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Exhibition

Selected Exhibitions:
- Girl and Simple Things, Maryland, U.S., 2010
- People and Trees, The Jerusalem Theater, 2009-2010
- Polaroid, Design Gallery, st. Petersburg, Russia, 2009
- Local Testimony, The Open Museum of Photography, Tel-Hay, Israel, 2009
- Documentary Israeli Photography, companion exhibition to World Press Photo, Dizingoff center, Tel-Aviv, 2008
- Safe Harbour, City Gallery, Rishon-LeZion, Israel, 2011
- Because our lives is… Bet HaOmanut Gallery, Mevasseret Zion, Israel, 2011
- Crust, solo show, Jerusalem Artists’ House, Jerusalem, Israel, 2011