German artist brings flipbook portraits of October 7 survivors to Israel Festival

For the last 20 years, Volker Gerling has been creating “thumb cinema” performances of the people he meets during his on-foot treks.

“Sometimes I tell the story behind the story, sometimes I show the story without telling it,” said Gerling of his performance art, which is called Portraits in Motion. “Sometimes that changes it for the audience — they see the protagonist with different eyes.”

When Gerling performs in English at the Israel Festival, on September 18 and 19 at the Jerusalem Theater, he’ll have his usual setup — a table and screen — with his photographic flipbooks displayed onscreen as he tells the stories of the people portrayed.

“People come alive in my hands and we see them onscreen as a form of animation,” he said.

It’s an art form that Gerling created in 2003, first working in Germany and then — following a 2015 performance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival that brought him new audiences — around the world.

The performances for the Israel Festival, however, mark the first time Gerling has developed a completely new piece in a foreign country for a festival.

Gerling had been hoping to participate in the 2024 Israel Festival, but when the October 7 Hamas attack happened, he said, he was shocked “in the face of the monstrous event,” and didn’t expect the festival to take place or that he would be invited if it did.

When the invitation came in December, said Gerling, he wanted to come but felt frightened to be suddenly placed in the middle of the conflict. Still, he accepted.

Gerling made plans to take his walk through Israel in April, but postponed that trip when Iran threatened to attack. He came instead in May, during the week of Israel’s national days, with a guided tour for him to meet with those directly affected by October 7.

“It was not a walk around Israel,” said Gerling, who hadn’t visited Israel since 1988. “It was a guided tour for me, and it was a different way of working for me, in a situation that is sad and complicated. I got a very intense view inside Israeli society.”

Gerling met a Bedouin father and his sons who had been working in Kibbutz Be’eri when it was attacked and somehow survived, hiding in fear for hours with bullets flying over their heads. And he toured another of the southern kibbutz communities, guided by a survivor who told him about her desperate hours of hiding in a sealed room.

While Gerling usually photographs the people he meets to create his flipbooks, he couldn’t do that with several of his interview subjects because of the harsh, loud sounds of his camera, which he uses to take 36 photos of each person or image in a matter of seconds.

“It’s a brutal way of taking photos, again and again, tak, tak, tak, tak,” he said, describing the harsh sound. “I had the feeling that my camera, in this situation, would become a weapon instead of turning their souls to life.”

Their stories were also different from those of Gerling’s usual subjects, and the Israeli interviewees had already told their stories many times.

“It makes a big difference if people tell their story for the first time, or if they’re telling it again and again,” said Gerling. “When I do my walks in Germany, I photograph very regular people and when they experience a stranger who is interested in their story, then they grow in a way and become proud and use this energy that creates this chance encounter to make my portraits.”

It’s that energy that Gerling unloads into his flipbooks, and that becomes apparent in his performances.

“When I decided to come back to photograph people in July, when people heard that, something happened,” he said. “They were expecting me and that moment created an energy, like on my walks. They became excited and proud and didn’t know exactly what to expect.”

Nor did Gerling.

“This wasn’t a walk in Israel,” said Gerling. “I hope that one day I can do that as well.”

Portraits in Motion, September 18 and 19, Jerusalem Theater.