Public Movement regards the Museum as an arena where civic behaviour in public space is moulded according to the ideals of a democratic society. 'National Collection' examined the Museum as a site and set of activities through which national and cultural identity is defined. The Declaration of the State of Israel took place in 1948, in the original location of the Tel Aviv Museum, during a historical event in which art and politics were one and the same.
'National Collection' opened almost a decade after Public Movement's inaugural performative act: the laying of a wreath of white flowers on the steps of the Independence Hall. The exhibition temporarily returned the Independence Hall to the 'Hall of Art' to underscore a complex relationship and interdependency between the State and its cultural institutions.
To participate in the exhibition, the audience met in the main building and then moved through the Museum’s galleries, as well as spaces that are usually closed to the public, in groups of up to 25 people.
From here, Public Movement members led each group through a site-specific performance that included a series of activities: ceremonies, short speeches, rituals and processions through the Museum—the choreography of which was based on two years of ongoing research and work in the Museum.
Public Movement is a performative research body established in 2006 by Omer Krieger and Dana Yahalomi, its director since 2011. The group initiates and creates activities within the public sphere, bringing together politics and art with the audience's participation. Public Movement studies and creates public choreographies, forms of social order, and overt and covert rituals. It explores the political and aesthetic possibilities residing in a group of people acting together.
