As an artist whose work defies political, physical, and psychological constraints, Rona Yefman questions the elements that define an authentic existence. Her subjects embody the possibility of freedom, and her work as a whole is concerned with the gap between who we are, and who we want to be. The vulnerable yet strong identities explored through her photography, video, collected texts, collages, and installations comprise long-term collaborations with individuals who have formed radical personae. While the characters that emerge are a construction of something raw and authentic, they are also drawn from relationships developed through many years of collaboration, which allows spontaneous situations and novel identity formations to occur, constituting an assertion of self for both the artist and her subjects. Born in Israel, identity was bound by conflict and enforced by male dominant militaristic behavior. Since childhood, Yefman has envisioned the children’s hero, Pippi Longstocking, as her alter ego--a rebellious character with socially subversive ideas, most of all defying conventions of feminine behavior.

She is a recipient of the Ingeborg Bachmann Scholarship established by Anselm Kiefer and awarded by the Wolf Foundation to a young Israeli artist, the Gerard Levy Prize for a young photographer from the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, the Lotos Club Award in New York and the 2009 Rema Hort Mann Scholarship.

Courtesy of Participant Inc.