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The Venus Project

By David Scheinmann

 Curated by Tamar Arnon & Eli Zagury 

The BRACHA Organisation has brought together British artist David Scheinmann, London based curators Tamar Arnon and Eli Zagury and producer Osnat Arnon Kashtan, to create a touring exhibition featuring photography, video art, a book and a documentary to raise awareness for hereditary cancers. This empowering art project features 10 individuals affected by hereditary cancer who represent BRACHA's diverse community. They are one male and nine female BRCA genetic mutation carriers who are either Previvors who have either undergone or are considering difficult and life changing operations to lower their risk of cancer, or Survivors of hereditary breast and ovarian cancers, except sadly for Sigal, who passed away due to ovarian cancer shortly after the photo-shoot.

The Venus Project comprises a collection of photographs and filmed material, which is simultaneously poignant and positive. Scheinmann drew on Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’ as the source of artistic inspiration. Water has provided Scheinmann with the environment for his photography. This is both an aesthetic and a conceptual choice, where the body floats and moves untethered by gravity, suggesting cathartic and ethereal states. This heightened setting has resulted in imagery which can somehow encapsulate more illusive concepts such as survival, the human condition and identity. Scheinmann captures the delicate beauty of the indomitable human spirit in the ongoing negotiation between life and death.

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This powerful and empowering project was presented at the Rosenfeld Porcini gallery in Fitzgrovia, London in September 2017. Many people came to support BRACHA at the Private View that also featured live original music by Julie Sassoon along the 'Catharsis' video art piece and dancer Natasha Wade.

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David Scheinmann is a British artist working in the mediums of photography and filmmaking. He began his career as a cutting edge commercial photographer and went onto win a host of international awards. His early work is now part of the permanent collection of the National Galleries of Scotland. Today Scheinmann’s work explores issues of cultural identity and popular iconography. Scheinmann challenges, re-appropriates, and subverts our popular icons.

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The event was sponsored by the Zamek family in loving memory of Nicola Zamek