Plastic animals is a series that tries to encapsulate that unembodied feeling of belongingness
in a foreign environment. Through this ongoing series of pictures, taken in various locations
in Berlin and its surroundings, Merav Maroody depicts her feelings towards being an
immigrant, and the constant look for an “alternative” family, away from her own, now
distant, real family.
The series started during a trip with a group of friends to Poland. It followed a line of
consequential events that happened in Maroody’s life, and led to a post traumatic reaction
and to the need of a long period of recovery. The trip to Poland was meant to bring some
comfort in the shape of an intimate weekend with friends. Just before a forthcoming storm,
she asked all of 12 friends that went with her to the desolated Villa in Poland, to wear plastic
animal masks and to pose for her.
The pictures became a sort of “my family and other animals”, and created an uncanny
atmosphere of being “hugged” and protected in unfamiliar surroundings. The friends, who
wore the masks, and are all immigrants themselves, became, in this wild, untouched nature,
a group of hybrid bodies, entirely immersed in the surrounding, reflecting in it, and feeling
completely comfortable behind the mask. They all gathered around Maroody to show their
love and support, and to share her fears and hardships of being alone in a foreign country.
The new family that Maroody creates through the masks, comes with its own new
mythology, dynamics, and fears. The mask, with its emotionless expression, has the
potential to become a danger and to expose the animal that lies underneath. Maroody
marks this duality through the juxtaposition of the “animals” in different surroundings, each
creating a different facet of her fears and hopes from her “new family” relationship.
