Hagar Cygler Untitled, 2026

Using thread to draw on the wall, Cygler reweaves lost memories gathered from a collection of family slides purchased at the Jaffa Flea Market—a record of everyday moments from the 1960s and 70s in the life of a family unknown to the artist. As they travel the world and the city, photographing themselves, they incidentally document Tel Aviv house facades, sidewalks, and gardens. The gaze sweeps over the almost incidental details in the background—a building line, a touch of greenery, the silhouette of the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium—and shifts between a familiar, shared urban space and private family moments that do not belong to the observer.

Translating the original photographs into line drawings distills the image to its structural details—the way the family members are positioned before the camera, the city’s architectural features—and softens the specificity of the captured moment. From a distance, the work appears almost transparent; only a closer inspection reveals the materiality of the thread and the painstaking process of adhesion.

The thread, serving as the outline for figures, buildings and the cityscape, also reflects the fragility of the home itself. Anything that appears stable and familiar might become unraveled and vanish with a single tug. Both urban and familial memories transform into something delicate, hanging on a thread, clinging to the wall and to time alike.