Abie Franklin
Abie Franklin (1995, Jerusalem) graduated from Thelma Yellin High School in Tel Aviv with the highest honors in the visual arts department. After finishing school, he declined the obligatory military service and worked in a children's home instead. Franklin moved to Berlin in 2015, making the city his new home.
His postgraduate diploma in Fine Arts from Kunsthochschule Berlin Weißensee (2016-2022) laid the foundation for his exploration of space, identity, and materiality; assisting Professor Nader Ahriman's class (2020-2022) allowed Franklin to deepen his understanding of colonial legacies within spatial constructs.
In 2022, Franklin co-founded the “Solitudo Residency” in Croatia, fostering artistic collaboration and dialogue. His practice involves looking at archetypes of spatial relations as representations of power dynamics, and narratives of conflict and desire. Within this realm, the materiality of borders is his main focus.
Artworks
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Within an illusory space, archetypes of power projection emerge. The present works interrogate sources of recurring trauma and the potency of geopolitical pivot points to bend human perception of spacetime, causing a reliving of the same moment repeatedly. The centerpiece shown on the wall shows an absent desk filled with graphic displays of territorial claims that invites the viewer's interaction. Adjacent is a fender couple, whose motorized motion creates a continuous negotiation, forming a contact zone, which leaves traces of matte impact on the shiny surface.