Ayala Gazit

Ayala Gazit was born in Haifa, Israel in 1984, and was raised in Tel Aviv by an American mother and an Israeli father. She started photographing at age 15, and quickly fell in love with photography as an art form as well as a language. When she was 18 year old she was drafted to the Israeli Army, where she served for two years as a military photographer in a highly classified unit in the Intelligence division. In 2005 she moved to New York to complete a BFA in photography at The School of Visual Arts. Ayala graduated with Honors in May 2009, and was fortunate enough to be chosen as the single student to receive the Tierney Fellowship. Thanks to the Fellowship's support she managed to begin the project, “Was it a Dream",which she has been wishing to embark on for over a decade. This summer she will begin her MFA studies in the International Low Residency MFA program in photography in The University of Hartford.

View more of Ayala's work here and here 

Was it a Dream Statement 

When I was 12 years old my father told me that I have an older brother named James, who lives in Australia. My father and James at the point have been sending each other letters for a number of years, however they have yet to meet or hear one another’s voice. Uncomfortable being the eldest grandchild on both sides of my family, I became obsessed with the possibility of an older brother. I never had the chance to meet James, he committed suicide in October 1996. This work is my attempt to create a portrait of my brother whom I will never meet. When photographing the “Unphotographable”, by following the traces and echos of ones existence after his passing. Thanks to the Tierney Fellowship I received in 2009, I traveled across Australia to meet James's family, who thankfully accepted me as one of their own. The work I created consists of family snapshots, letters and quotes from conversations, alongside my own images taken in Israel and Australia.