MICHAL RONNEN SAFDIE
Born in Jerusalem, Israel in 1951, Michal Ronnen Safdie was educated in the fields of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University and Brandeis University. She worked as a social worker for the Ministry of welfare in Jerusalem.In 1983 she took up Architectural photography (in Cambridge Ma), specializing in architectural models photographed in studio settings as well as architectural buildings.
In 1995 she resided in Jerusalem embarking on a two-year project documenting life at the Western Wall. This led to the publication of The Western Wall, published by Hugh Lauter Levin in 1997, and a traveling exhibition which continues to be displayed world wide.
Since then she has pursued a dual path of interest; Abstract photography and journalistic essays.
Her series of Anthropomorphic Trees brought about a search for a different kind of print and led to the use of the Iris print. This body of work was first shown at Salander O’Reilly Gallery in New York in May 2001.
In 2002 Ronnen Safdie documented some of the pre-Gacaca trials in Rwanda which attempted to resolve the imprisonment of 100,000 perpetrators of the 1994 genocide. In October 2004, she photographed refugees from Darfur in the camps on the border of Chad. These two bodies of work are currently in an exhibition at the Skirball Museum in LA entitled, “Rwanda; after Darfur; Now.”
Ronnen Safdie’s most recent series, photographs of ice on the Charles River, were exhibited at Robert Klein Gallery in Boston (October 2005), and the Drabinsky Gallery in Toronto (May 2006).