DYAD
Video performance, single channel, 2022 (5’18)

Concept and performance | Joy Bernard
Videography | Shir Lusky
Video editing | Tom Fima

The video is currently on view in the exhibition “Me, that obscure object of desire” at Jaffa’s Beit Kandinof
(curator: Malu Zayon).

Dyad — Pair. Specifically, sociologically: Two individuals maintaining a significant relationship.

One of the first dyads known to mankind in the myths of Abrahamic religions was composed of a couple: Adam and Eve, when they consummated their passion after the disgraceful banishment from the Garden of Eden. In developmental psychology, mothers and their infants are said to attempt to form a dyad in order to overcome the traumatic physical separation postpartum. Two, together.

While these images exist in her mind, the artist – secluded in her apartment in the midst of a pandemic – is alone. A performer without an audience, a woman without her lover, a daughter without parents. Not a dyad but rather a singular entity; one, alone. In her longing, the artist turns to the mirror. She discovers her reflection, and rejoices over it like a child discovering the thrill of its physicality for the first time. Laughing, dancing, growling, humming, touching herself in her obsession for contact, hurting herself and practicing facial and breathing exercises, Bernard tries to create a dyad for herself in a lonely world.