Lazarides is pleased to present It Took Me Till Now to Find You, a new project by Addam Yekutieli, aka Know Hope.

“For the past few months I’ve been working on a project that is very different from what I normally work on, in the sense that it deals with a very close and local issue. Generally, I try to deal with issues from a universal standing point, but this time I wanted to research this conflict from a personal standing point, and less ideological or intellectual. The project, titled; ‘It Took Me Till Now To Find You’, attempts to portray a complex political reality, through describing an on-going historical narrative.

For this project I’ve been collecting letters written by Palestinians and Israelis, with the aim of hearing about notions of belonging, of homeland and longing. The authors of the letters come from eclectic backgrounds and various walks of life- left wing, right wing, settlers, military objectors, religious and secular.

Each letter is addressed to whichever recipient the author chose fitting. At times, the letter is open ended, and other times it is addressed to someone very specific. The letters are all handwritten on paper in an intimate and personal tone.

One of the letters was written by a bereaved Israeli parent addressed to the parents of the person that killed her son David during his mandatory military service, and another written by a Palestinian mother about her hopes that the limitations her daughter will face as a woman will be different than those that she experienced growing up. In most of the letters, both the biography of the author and recipient is unknown, leaving the interpretation of the narrative open to the reader.